Jim, That is so interesting! Long ago a fellow here in the Bay Area, Jack Roll (he made some great tools), began prestretching piano wire with some sort of a gadget that put X amount of weight to some lengths of wire and after some time they would be straight and much more stable when repairing a broken string. I believe Sheldon Smith has all the particulars her in the Bay Area. This list is so interesting some times! David Ilvedson Date sent: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 13:29:45 -0700 (MST) From: "Jim Coleman, Sr." <pianotoo@imap2.asu.edu> Subject: Re: wire curve To: Delwin D Fandrich <pianobuilders@olynet.com> Copies to: pianotech@ptg.org Send reply to: pianotech@ptg.org > HI Del: > > When I worked for Baldwin, we began getting our wire cut to length and it > was straight. In the Juarez plant I designed a box which had many conduit > tubes in it arranged according to the string numbers starting from the top > to the bottom of the plain wire scale. I had to figure the length of the > wire from the tuning pin to the hitch pin and back again and then add the > length for the coils on each tuning pin. I placed a 1 inch plug at the > bottom end of each tube so that the bundle of precut wire would stick out > of the tube 1 inch for easy grasping when it was time to be coiled on a > tuning pin. > > One of the ways we designed to keep the stringer from grabbing the wrong > wire, was to have them precoil one string from each tube ahead of time. > then as they were stringing, they would just grab the next wire which had > a tuning pin dangling at the end of the tube. The box these tubes were > mounted in was elevated at a small angle so that the wire would stay in the > tube in a orderly manner. > > We found that we could buy wire cheaper in straight precut lengths because > they did not have to wind it into coils and then package it. They had a > chopper located just beyond the sizing die. when the end of the wire hit > a stop, this triggered the chopper to cut the wire to that precise length. > Then the wire being drawn through the die would continue on until it hit > the stop again and was chopped. This method leaves the wire straight because > coming out of the die, it is never coiled. > > Del, did you ever find any difference between the coiled wire and the > straight wire as far as tone was concerned? I had always assumed that there > was no difference in sound because in the speaking length of a wire, the > tendency to coil was minuscule compared to the tension on the wire. > > Jim Coleman, Sr. > > > > On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Delwin D Fandrich wrote: > > > > > > > Richard Moody wrote: > > > > > Del, > > > Where did you get the straight wire? Is "how" a better word? > > > > > > Ric > > > > > > > ---------------------- > > > > The company I worked for at the time had a good working relationship with the > > string maker. I compared "straight" wire, coiled wire & "straightened" wire. > > > > Del > > > > > David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA ilvey@jps.net
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