I did the usual string stabilizing procedures. I cleaned up the capo. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "seat the wire on the capo." The strings in question are all size 14 wire. If the wire is at fault, will it eventually stretch out and stabilize? How do I know what I've got, short of chemical analysis? I've only run into bad wire problems once in my career. I had a string breakage problem in a new Steinway upright. I tried to tie one of the strings and it broke like a pretzel, no flex in the string at all. I replaced strings which was tricky given that the wire in question was in the middle of the piano where the bass strings cross over the ends of the treble wire. No fun. I did notice that the 14 wire has a different look to it. The 13.5 wire has a nice shiny new finish to it. The size 14 looks rather dull in comparison--very noticeable, however. Richard West On Nov 8, 2010, at 6:22 PM, Ward & Probst, Inc wrote: > Is that all the 14 gauge on the piano? If so, I'd look at the wire. > It's > also in an area that Knabe used a grain angle on the bridge cap > that has > been good for business. Did you reshape the capo in that area and > seat the > wire on the capo? > DP > Dale Probst RPT > Registered Piano Technician > Ward & Probst, Inc. > www.wardprobst.com > dale at wardprobst.com > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of > rwest1 at unl.edu > Sent: Monday, November 08, 2010 12:57 PM > To: College and University Technicians > Subject: [CAUT] restringing problems > > > Several weeks ago I was hired to restring a Knabe grand (around 5' 6" > or so) that was around 100 years old. Everything went fine, but > there's one area that will not stabilize--F#6 to b flat 6, all size > 14 wire. I've tuned the piano several times, but I keep having to go > back to the aforementioned area to clean up the unisons that have > gone flat, some by a considerable amount. > > The pins are tight. The coils are tight. The beckets are good. I > believe the bridge pins are solid (I used fresh Dryburgh superglue). > Plate bolts are solid. I tuned the piano again today and it seemed > that things might hold this time, but I'm looking for suggestions in > case those notes go crazy again. The notes above and below are > stabilizing about as I would expect with a restringing. I'll be > going back in 2 weeks to check. If the problem involved only one > note/string, I'd just replace the string and see if that was the > cure. But there are several strings on several notes. > > I've restrung many pianos over the years and never had a problem like > this. What's going on? > > Richard West > > > > >
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