BREAKING STRINGS

[Leslie W Bartlett]

Oops, sorry, this is a Beckendorff piano, upright, about twelve years
old. Actually not a bad sounding piano. But it's the first wound string,
and must be replaced with such. It originally broke in the wound section
from corrosion, perhaps mouse pee.  So, it had a wound string on itat one
time.

The string broke at both replacement attempts at the bass top bridge pin.

lesb


On Sat, 20 Feb 1999 10:13:47 Susan Kline <skline@proaxis.com> writes:
>Wow, Les, hot from the press! You don't wait around. You don't say
>what type of piano this is, or what age. I would guess that it's 
>a quite old piano, probably of an obscure brand?
>
>I once had something similar happen, when replacing bass strings
>on an old upright, at the top of the section. In the first two
>or three notes there were several broken strings, including one
>replacement. I put a new string in, and it felt very tight coming
>up. I barely got it to pitch. I put another in, and it broke.
>
>At the house, I measured the speaking length as well as in the
>core and wrap diameters, and plugged them into PScale (Tremaine
>Parson's program) when I got home. The speaking length was too
>long, and there was no wrapped string size which would yield
>a safe tension as a percentage of breaking strength. When I 
>gave up on the wrapped wire, and started trying plain wire,
>I found a decent set of numbers at size 19. 
>
>I went back to the piano, put in the plain wire, even though it
>was in the bass section, and the notes sounded fine and the strings
>didn't break. 
>
>In this case, the old designers just had guessed wrong.
>
>Susan
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>At 12:36 PM 2/20/99 EST, you wrote:
>>I am writing this from the home of a customer where I have  
>encountered a
>>problem I can't figure out.  She had a broken string, in the winding, 
>due, I
>>think, to mouse pee. I ordered two strings, one for the broken one, 
>and the
>>other for one which looked like it would break soon.
>>
>>The new string broke before I got it to pitch.  I chalked that up to
>>stupidity.  The second string also broke before I got it up to pitch. 
> This I
>>don't credit to stupdity. I cannot find a burr at the pin on the top, 
>and the
>>angle of deflection isn't radical. I got it within half a step, then 
>was very
>>careful about going toward pitch.  I even lubricated the friction 
>point,
>>trying to be over-cautious.
>>
>>I measured accurately.  First time I used a snap guage. Today I 
>remeasured
>>with a micrometer, and got the same readings.
>>
>>Any wisdom????????????   If the reply is posted to the list, I guess 
>you
>don't
>>need my e-mail. It's included in case anyone answers me privately.
>>
>>Incidentally, the lady asked me, "By the way do you do plumbing?  We 
>called
>>"JM" plumbing and they want $200 to install a garbage 
>grinder......... "
>So, I
>>spent 30 minutes putting the new one, she going after the new tubes 
>etc. and
>>made a few extra bucks........
>>
>>les bartlett
>
>

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