[CAUT] Pure Sound Wire

[Ed Sutton]

Paul-

When the M was strung with standard piano wire, it had no broken strings after 75 years.
When it was strung with Pure Sound, high treble strings broke spontaneously, ping-in-the-middle-of-the-night.
I think the appropriate use of Pure Sound is in low tensioned, 19th century instruments. I have had good success in that application. 

Pure Sound is prone to break at the becket, and at the back of the hitchpin. When you bend it back and forth, you can feel that it is much softer than standard piano wire.

In instruments where the lowest tenor notes are short scaled (low tension), it might be an alternative to wound strings.
You could try Pure Sound on the first three lowest plain wire notes of the B. It will probably make tuning easier, and if they break, you've only got three notes to restring.

Ed
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Paul T Williams 
  To: caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 8:46 AM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] Pure Sound Wire


  Fred, 

  Curious, as I'm planning on doing this same project on a early 80's B this summer, what year was this piano of yours?  Thankfully, (Thank you, Richard West), the action was de-tefloned before my starting here and I replaced the hammers last year, but still many broken strings on the capo area. I want to nip this one in the bud. I replace at least one string every other week in this piano professor's studio.  They might lessen, just because the main piano pounder was an energetic GTA who's now graduated!   

  Richard put forth another issue that some of you might know more about...that the plate was origianally located poorly. How much would this problem affect string breakage? Could it also affect that strange sound from F2 that happens on all of our 70's and 80's Steinway B's? 

  Best, 

  Paul 



        From:  Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu>  
        To:  Ed  Sutton <ed440 at mindspring.com>, caut at ptg.org  
        Date:  05/09/2010 09:02 PM  
        Subject:  Re: [CAUT] Pure Sound Wire 


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  On May 9, 2010, at 7:51 PM, Ed Sutton wrote: 

  A few years ago Pure Sound wire was being promoted as suitable for use on S & S M pianos. 
  Has anyone tried it? 
  Have you had breakage problems? 
  Thank you. 
    
  Ed Sutton 

  I experimented with Pure Sound on a B a couple summers ago (piano in a classroom). I will be restringing the treble sections (capo) this summer. Far, far too much breakage. Tenor is great, and does sound noticeably better (well, it's subtle, but better - clarity and sustain, as well as a better inharmonicity match, and F2 area tunes much more easily). But the breakage in the capo section has been nearly 50%, compared to maybe as much as 5% (mostly much less) in pianos with standard wire. No broken strings (so far) in the tenor (up to C#5). 
  I should note that I did use the extra strong wire as recommended as well as recommended scaling. 
  Regards, 
  Fred Sturm 
  fssturm at unm.edu 
  http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm 
  http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm 
  http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/FredSturm 





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