[CAUT] Pure Sound Wire

[Richard Murphy]

I too had the same advice of lowering the tension first, strings still
broke, not many but at least one each season.  It¹s been three years now.
Firtunately, this B is not used much.
Richard


On 5/10/10 9:27 AM, "Adkins, Richard" <radkins at coe.edu> wrote:

> Friends,
>  
> I used it on an L according to the scale provided two years ago.
>  
> The tone was sweeter, if not as strong, and the attack was really nice. The
> best attack
> I've heard from strings. This might be because they are softer wire.
>  
> I only had one string break at the hitch pin, which I replaced and the
> others held, UNTIL this year, second term, when they began breaking from about
> A4 up through C6 I believe.
>  
>  Mostly the 16.5, 16s, but I did have some 15 1/2s, 17s, and an 18 break too.
>  
> I reported this to Carlos, the developer, and he called me from Amsterdam to
> discuss this.
> We spoke at some length. Needless to say, he was very upset to hear this.
>  
> He claims that the string is softer and tends to wrap around the bearing
> points, so you
> must first lower tension (back off) before tuning. He says that since he's
> altered his approach
> to tuning the pure sound wire he's not had any breaking strings.
>  
> Try it and see,I'm going to. He kindly sent me replacement wire at his expense
> for my trouble.
>  
> I have replaced most of the pure sound wire w/Mapes.
>  
> I agree, I regularly tune pianos with strings atleast 50 if not 100 years old
> that have not broken in all that time!
>  
> I wanted to stainless steel wire to eliminate the rust problem. Well, I
> probably
> did eliminate the rust problem with it, but got a breakage problem instead.
>  
> When you install the wire, you must wind the coils slowly, and also make your
> hitch
> ends slowly. He advises that you put some lube on the hitch pins, and perhaps
> a pin point
> at the agraffes or bridge pins. I had lubed the hitch pins, but not the bridge
> or agraffes.
> You can also lube the capo on the non speaking side, and any bearing points
> between
> the tuning pin and the capo. This "should" minimize breaking.
>  
> I don't mind replacing one or two occassionaly, but whole sections are just
> too much.
>  
> Juan says this wire/scaling was made for pianos with a very "short scale". I
> don't
> know what kind of scale the B has.
>  
> Even the new B's sound weird at the break from note #20 and 21,22.
>  
> It's been a great experiment, but really upset me when they began to pop left
> and right,
> and over night! Hope Juan's techniques will prevent any more. I won't be using
> that
> wire again, until I can verify the new approach works. I'd like to do a
> Steinway S
> that is very rusty with it. Maybe just Mapes will have to do.
>  
> YMMV....!
>  
> Cheers
>  
> Richard Adkins
> Coe College
>  
>  
> 


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