Baldwin L rusty strings

[Roger Jolly]

Greetings Avery,
                  From your description it sounds as if something has been
spilt or worse yet, some friendly rodents have been marking their turf.
Look at the sides of the bridge and sound board for tell tale signs,
(stains and discoloration)  check the vertical laminations of the bridge
carefully to ensure there is no seperation.  Coke or urine tends to be very
corrosive, if in the worse case you have to restring a section phone Kent
and get a compound bearing gauge on loan, if you do not have one. I think
Baldwin supplies instuction on how to use the device.  If you are using the
piano supply house, three legged dial gauge, 0.010" is very close with the
centre leg place at the centre of the bridge. A few years ago I conducted
some test on thermo couple, and galvanaic effects on bass strings. ( little
electic currents that flow between dissimilar materials/and chemical action
between metals.) This sounds off the wall but if you have 1 to 10mA of D.C.
current flowing between the bridge pin and the string some kind of fluid is
causing a galvanaic effect, which will accelerate corrosion, and hence
breakage.  I have misplaced my test results and am going from a memory that
may be addled.  You will need a DVM ammeter to effect this
measurement.200microamp 100milliamp ranges.
 Now you must think I'm certifiable.
Regards Roger





At 05:37 PM 6/1/98 -0500, you wrote:
>List,
>
>   I ran into something today that I've never seen in almost 25 years of
>doing this type of work. Maybe I've just been lucky.
>   Anyway, I was called to tune a 2-1/2 yr. old Baldwin L. It had two
>broken strings, one on C6 and the other in the upper part of the tenor bass
>string area. The unusual thing, to me, is that BOTH strings broke on top of
>the bridge.
>   I discovered that the entire long bridge has this VERY rusty wire ONLY
>on top of the bridge between the bridge pins. The pins are the copper type.
>The other tenor bass strings down at the end of the long bridge where this
>one broke are even more rusty than the others. They look like strings I've
>seen on pianos that have had "swamp coolers" blowing on them for 20-30
>years.
>   Another strange thing is that the bass strings on the 'bass' bridge have
>NO  rust at all, except for the usual expected in a climate like Houston.
>The speaking lengths of the others and the waste end past the bridge are
>all normal, also.
>   I'm going to call Kent Webb tomorrow in case this turns out to be a
>warranty type of thing, but in the meantime I thought I'd check and see if
>anyone else has ever seen this on a piano that new. The customer is very
>particular about the piano and is very concerned about this being a
>continuing problem.
>   I don't see how there is any way it could be just the wire itself
>because the rest of the lengths are fine. Could it be the bridge lubricant?
>Could the bridge itself have held moisture in the air long enough at some
>point for this to happen? Considering the type of wood normally used there,
>I wouldn't think so.
>   I'm out of ideas. Any out there. This is an accu-just hitch pin piano,
>so *I* don't "really" want to restring it even if that should turn out to
>be the only remedy. Any other suggestions?
>   Thanks again.
>
>Avery
>
>___________________________
>Avery Todd, RPT
>Moores School of Music
>University of Houston
>Houston, TX 77204-4893
>713-743-3226
>atodd@uh.edu
>http://www.music.uh.edu/
>
>MUSIC DEFINITIONS:
>   Accelerando : what happens when drummers have to keep a steady beat. 
>
>
>
Roger Jolly
Balwin Yamaha Piano Centres.
Saskatoon/Regina.
Canada.