String Levelling

[w sikora]

List,

Having followed this thread, I was eager to try string levelling on an old
Mason & Hamlin A this week.  The hammers were fairly well worn.  After gang
sanding and some re-shaping and needling  all the hammers, as well as
seating strings on the bridge, the tone was much better.  I would have next
routinely checked the hammer fit to the strings.

I had seen Wally Brooks demonstrate string levelling at the 1984 convention.
Guess I thought it was only for new strings.  Wouldn't have thought it would
be needed on a 60 year old piano.   But when I checked the level of the
strings on the "A" I found about two thirds of them in the plain wire
agraffe section to be out of level. On the out of level unisons there wasn't
a whine or buzz or any particular problem in tuning the unisons.  Rather, on
this piano, the effect of the out of level strings was to make the tone
weaker and far less clear than on the notes with level strings. 

I think that the aggregate effect of a bunch of unlevel strings is a high
level of backround noise even when the piano is well tuned. After all, the
energy from the hammer blow has to go somewhere.  I characterize this
backround noise as sounding 'wirey' or 'wooly'.  It's the chaotic sound of a
lot of little sounds that don't fit together.  The aural equivalent of steel
wool.

Anyway, when I was finished with this Mason & Hamlin A, the customer played
some Debussy and Beethoven. The result was the clearest sound of any piano
I've done extensive work on. The chords and the music were there against a
background of near silence. The lack of 'wireyness'  was stunning,
gratifying and humbling.

Thanks to you who posted information on the list, I didn't try to fit the
hammers to unlevel strings.  Hammer fitting would have no doubt improved the
sound a bit, but wouldn't have corrected a fundamental problem.

Walter Sikora, RPT
Chapel Hill, NC

P.S.  This piano sounded great with J. Coleman's 'Pure Fifths Tuning'!