Breaking strings (new angle?)

[Ron Nossaman]

At 07:40 AM 2/25/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Friends:
>
>Since most strings break at the tuning pin, could one reason be that it
>has been flexed there too much during tuning? If so, we will find
>strings breaking faster in a piano where an inexperienced tuner went
>back and forth, back and forth, trying to figure out where to leave the
>tension.  

* Possibly, but there's so very little movement and string flexing involved
unless a major pitch change is necessary, I'd be more apt to think it's a
matter of the inexperienced tuner not freeing up the bearing contact points
by lowering pitch slightly before pulling them up. In the case of the
Wurlitzer bass, I'd blame the string riding up the coil. Then again, with
the string riding up the coil, you would get more scrubbing of string
against string at that point, with less pin movement, than if the geometry
were correct. 


>
>Would it also follow, then, that a piano tuned 2-4 times a year will
>develop a breaking string problem faster than one that is tuned
>infrequently?  (Please!  I am NOT advocating out of tune pianos; my
>question is theoretical.)

* I've found that the neglected pianos are the most likely to break strings
at the tuning pins, and the hard played and often tuned to break them at the
capo. I've always thought it was kind of unlikely that strings would break
at the pin at all, considering the abuse they take at the bearing points,
but they sure do. I wonder how much of this we can blame on stringing
technique, and hardened steel coil lifters. I attended a class by Lew Herwig
and Bud Cory (sp?) on stringing. They had a Wurlitzer back for demonstration
purposes, and Bud lifted coils with a string hook instead of coil lifter. No
obvious answers on that one. 

What's wrong with out of tune pianos? They've been feeding you for years. %-)




>
>I am almost afraid to ask these questions, but they have crossed my mind
>repeatedly, and I would be interested in any response.
>
>Clyde Hollinger, RPT

* There's nothing wrong with these questions, or any other speculative
poking about. This is where the fun stuff happens. There is more education
in questioning the accepted than in accepting the questionable. 


 Ron