String Levelling

[Delwin D Fandrich]

Richard Moody wrote:
> 
> List
>   For the last 25 years I have been tuning unisons and not aware of
> them being "out of level"  Now I am wondering when this concept came
> into being, and why it was not mentioned by three tuners I would call
> masters whom I studied under, and again why in literature including
> Reblitz (1st ed), the Travis Restringing, William B. White, "Theory
> and Practice of Piano Constrution", string leveling is not mentioned.
>   (Yes I read the Renner/Baldassin manual)
> 
>   I am aware of the man who appears to have perfected the modern piano
> wire in the 1900's  as saying, "Any wire bent beyond its elasticity
> limit is no longer functional as music wire" or words to that effect.
> 
>   In this regard I ask ,, what are you doing when you "level" strings?
> Or maybe the question is, if you "level" strings and they are
> elastic, won't they tend to go out of "level" after a while??
>   On an imaginary level, I can understand why strings that have been
> "leveled" buzz in the agraffs, and duplexes.  That beautiful curve of
> the string around pressure points, which is the nature of an elastic
> music string,, destroyed by "leveling", for what??
> 
> Richard Moody
> 

Richard, 

You're right, of course. The whole concept of string leveling was not
spoken of in either White's book, or for that matter, Wolfenden's book,
The Art of Pianoforte Construction. Then progress happened. Besides, I
reserve the right to continue studying the piano and, hopefully,
learning about them beyond what White and Reblitz (Wolfenden too, for
that matter) have taught us.

I suspect that at least in part what has happened is that the sound of
"modern" pianos has become harder and brassier than those men ever
imagined possible. This whole thing of string leveling is less of a
problem when the tone of the piano is a bit softer and warmer, as it
certainly was in White's and Wolfenden's day. As the desire for "power"
took over—and piano hammers have become harder and harder—the need for
"perfect" string termination has also become more critical.

"Leveling" strings refers to the practice of increasing the bend
(actually, decreasing the bend radius) at the forward string termination
point. And, yes, as you imply, the practice does take the wire further
beyond its elastic limit. But the wire has already been bent beyond its
elastic limit; not just there but at the bridge pins, the hitch pins,
the counter-bearing bars and the tuning pin. The caution about not
stretching the string beyond its elastic limit refers to keeping its
scale tension well below that point—not a problem in most scales except
perhaps in the high treble.

I tend to think that the whole practice of leveling strings gets a bit
overdone. If the soundboard assembly, the stringing scale and the
hammers are all working together, we find that very little of this work
is either necessary or desirable. We do go through a newly strung piano
to make sure that the bend radius at the termination points is uniform
and that the strings are basically level, but that's about it. (Keep in
mind that we are able to use somewhat softer hammers than are commonly
used today.)

I agree that the danger of string buzzes, especially with agraffes,
increases dramatically as the bend radius at the termination point
decreases. This becomes more of a problem with both agraffes and the 
V-bar as they age or if they have been improperly machined.

ddf