String rollers.

[Ron Nossaman]

>I personally find that after a restring, with clean wire, new bearings and 
>a clean bridge, practically all the setting of the tension can be done with 
>the tuning lever, in spite of others' experience. 

That's been my impression too.


> I also straighten 
>all wire before installing and never use it straight from the coil. 

I've heard a lot through the years about how necessary this was, but I was
never able to detect any difference one way or the other. Mine go straight
from the coil to the piano.


 > At a certain tension, the wire 
>reaches its 'elastic limit' and becomes 'plastic', like plasticene or 
>spaghetti, at the weakest point.  This happens over a very small range of 
>tension and your wire is no longer piano wire but very hard plasticene.

Note that at every point that the wire has been permanently bent, or
straightened, the plastic deformation limit of the wire has been exceeded.
If it hadn't been, the wire would not remain straight or bent when
released. That includes the becket, coil, and points at the counterbearing,
agraffe or Vee bar, bridge pins, aliquot, and hitch. At best, considerable
damage must be done to music wire to get it installed in a piano at all, so
the less over stretching and unnecessary abuse the stringer subjects it to,
the better.



> When it 
>comes to piano wire, it is not quite true, as I mentioned in another 
>message a while ago, otherwise good pianos would only ever need one good 
>tuning.  

Only in a world without climate changes. In this corner of the galaxy, they
go sharp and flat with humidity swings. Of course if wood was eliminated
from piano construction in favor of non hygroscopic composites it might be
a little different.


Ron N