Clyde wrote: 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. 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 am almost afraid to ask these questions, but they have crossed my mind repeatedly, and I would be interested in any response. >> Clyde, Here are my thoughts and observations. My experience with broken strings can be divided into to two sources. The first being general field work. In the customers home (with one recent exception) most strings break at the tuning pin. The other is at Northern Illinois University where on these very heavily used instruments strings break almost without exception at the pressure bar or agraffe. The recent home exception was on a piano with a teenage male exercising his muscles. It seems to me you may be right. On heavily used pianos the fatigue will strike first at the pressure bar but on lightly used pianos the tuning pin area may win the race to fatigue.
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