Breaking strings

[Stan Kroeker]

Dear colleagues,

Having already contacted Kimball's service manager, George Harrison
(really!), I would appreciate some advice from independent technicians
regarding the following problem on a Kimball grand.

The piano is a model 5100 (5 foot 1 inch) grand circa 1980 which had been
neglected (but not overtly abused) in recent years.  While correcting pitch
from -60 cents (to +15 cents in the first pass) strings began to break at
the tuning pin in the temperament octave.  The pitch correction was
abandoned and the piano gingerly tuned at the lower pitch as the instrument
was to be used at a party that evening.

Having been in national service management for 7 years, we dealt with
inexplicable string breakage in only a handful of the many thousands of
pianos we sold across Canada.  In each of these few cases, restringing of
the offending section permanently solved the problem.

Any other suggestions?  I'm accustomed to the occasional broken high treble
string during pitch correction, but usually on much older instruments in
poorer condition and most often at one of the bearing points rather than
the tuning pins.  Kimball did not admit to any peculiar trends on this or
any other model but admitted (after some prompting) from time to time they
had trouble with bad batches of wire.

Best regards,

Stan M. Kroeker, RPT

Kroeker & Sons Piano Experts
59 Quiring
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada  R2G 1Y5

Ph. 204-669-5881