Twisting new bass strings

[Terry Beckingham]

At 05:36 PM 6/20/98 EDT, you wrote:

>Terry:
>
>Can you please explain to all of us how you get the plate out of a piano, and
>keep the bass strings, to be reused later?
>
>Willem Blees RPT
>St. Louis

Hi Wim,

I don't see the problem, especially in an upright. I just pry the becket out
of the tuning pin hole and remove them leaving the coils intact. I place
them in order on a wire for storing until they are to be put back in. I have
broken off the becket on one or two occasions, but it it not hard to form a
new one.

On pianos that have agraffes, I use a stringing hook to straighten out the
coil before removing the string.
With the string still on the hitch pin, place the stringing hook inside the
coil and pull hard. The coil will straighten out and then the string can be
pulled through the agraffe. When putting the string back in, I form a new
coil using my Sciortino coil maker (not the insta-coiler.

I learned this method from an RPT colleague of mine.

Cheers

Terry Beckingham
PTG Associate