Wild strings in new pianos

[Joseph Alkana]

At 09:25 PM 8/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>At 06:38 PM 8/5/98 -0400, you wrote:
>>I'm posting this for a piano technician friend of mine who works on a lot
>>of new pianos.  He has noticed that recently many of the new, high-cost,
>>pianos have a lot of wild strings in the upper treble.  
>>Any suggestions?
>>
>>Ted Simmons
>>Merritt Island, FL
>
>
>Have him try this. Find a string that's good and wild. Isolate it from the
>rest of the unison with mutes as necessary. Position a screwdriver blade on
>the side of the speaking length bridge pin opposite where the string touches
>(right side). Push on the pin with the screwdriver as you play the note. If
>the string clears up, it's loose bridge pins, probably from a too soft
>bridge cap.
>
> Ron 
>
>
>
Ron et al,

I have tried treating some suspected bridge "softies" with saturations of CA
glue. I tried removing bridge pins and not rmoving bridge pins. Results
seemed somewhat mixed, but I would say that a great many wild or false
beating strings were reduced to whispers or cleared up entirely. Of course,
before trying this on a new piano I believe it would be prudent to get the
manufacturer's approval, possible in writing before trying that method. I
also think other areas of string termination should be well checked out
first, such as poor or kinked wire, clean notches and good placement of
bridge pins to the notch, cleanly defined capo bar termination and listening
for sympathetic string vibration problems from other areas of the piano. I
also believe that you should proceed with a good tuning first before
deciding on a course of action, as many mysterious wild strings will be
adequately masked upon close coupling of the unison. I guess we're running
out of 300 year old rock maple trees with close grain characteristics.
Synthetics anyone?

Just my two cent's worth.

Joseph Alkana