String Levelling

[Delwin D Fandrich]

S. Brady wrote:

>   I've met with several Steinways from, I think, the 1970s, which
> had agraffes with insufficient counterbore. The hole in the agraffe was
> pretty much just a straight cylindrical hole. I found that leveling
> strings on these pianos would often result in more problems than just
> leaving the strings where they were. In many cases, pulling a string up
> would cause a buzz--either immediately or down the road a bit.
> 
> Steve Brady, RPT
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA


Not just Steinways, though they were probably the most consistantly
troublesome. Most any piano from that era using Cornwall-Patterson
agraffes--which included many of the US built pianos--could have similar
problems. I remember restringing the tenor sections of several pianos
just so I could get at the agraffes and ream them out a bit.

Another problem with many of those C-P agraffes was that the holes were
not always level. No matter what you tried, the strings were not going
to be level.

Ah, well. Those were the good old days...right?

ddf