1 string, 2 strings, 3 strings or more

[Stephen Airy]

I have a friend and an uncle who both have similar
spinets.  My uncle's is a 1970s or 1980s Thearle (I
think -- that's the name on the fallboard and plate)
36" spinet, and the other friend's piano is a 1950s to
1970s vintage Wurlitzer 1170 series piano.  Both have
the same stringing arrangement (A1 - A#14 =
double-wrapped monochord, B15 - G35 = single-wrapped
bichord, bass/treble break = D30/D#31, G#36 to C88 =
plain triple-string unisons.  Until I opened up the
pianos, I thought the mono/bi break was around
G#12/A13 or something like that and the bi/tri break
was where the bass/treble break happens to be.

On my mother's PG-150, I can easily tell where the
bass/treble and monochord/bichord breaks are, but I
have to look to see where the bichord/trichord break
is.


--- John Delacour <JD@Pianomaker.co.uk> wrote:
> At 12:54 18/09/01 -0500, Ron Nossaman wrote:
> 
> 
> >No, I'd expect the tensions to be climbing as you
> go up scale, from, say,
> >328lbs at #12 in an example I have at hand, to
> 175lbs each at #13. The
> >monochord is at 54% with 0.048"core, and the
> bichords are at 34% with 0.44"
> >cores. This hardly strikes me as unreasonable or
> unacceptable considering
> >the original figures were 343lbs @61% for #12, and
> 233lbs @41% for #13. My
> >choice in core diameters in this instance isn't all
> that huge a jump
> >either, being 0.004" rather than the acceptable
> 0.003".
> 
> Well, we clearly have very different experience. 
> You say you'd expect the 
> tensions to be climbing as you go up scale -- so
> would I through the 
> singles of a 6 ft. grand but only because of the
> length of the piano.  In a 
> concert grand I would expect the tension on the
> singles either to be 
> roughly constant or even to fall somewhat towards
> the transition to 
> bichords.  The only reason the tension tails off to
> the bottom on uprights 
> and smaller grands is because we have not the
> length.
> 
> As to your 328 lb., I would say such a tension is
> dangerous on a No. 22 
> core and would not exceed 307 lbs if I wanted it to
> last.  To achieve such 
> a tension you have jumped two whole sizes.  That is
> fine -- I usually jump 
> at least one and a half sizes -- but I would then
> say that your 175 lb. 
> could be rather low for a No. 20 core.  At any event
> I would be likely to 
> spin the top single for 270 lbs on a 21 core and to
> first bichord for 180 
> lbs on a 19.5 core, presuming it's an average grand
> or large upright, 
> though I'd need to see the lengths as well.  This is
> not just my crazy way 
> of doing things;  Over 25 years of restringing
> pianos and making strings 
> for the trade, I've had the opportunity of analysing
> the best and the worst 
> of pianos.  By and large, the best pianos seem to
> have been designed along 
> similar lines, with a few notable exceptions.  I
> would need to hunt for 
> quite a while to come up with more than a couple of
> scales that would agree 
> with your practice.
> 
> > >As to "blending the tone", by which I understand
> matching as far as
> > >possible the harmonic balance of the adjacent
> break notes and not merely
> > >avoiding the most shocking of breaks, here the
> actual design and details of
> > >manufacture of the strings also plays an
> important part.  I heard someone
> > >say not long ago in front of an audience that a
> piano needs to be 9'6" long
> > >in order to achieve a satisfactory break between
> steel and covered strings!
> >
> >Whatever blending the tone means, I've produced
> pianos in which pianists
> >and technicians couldn't find the
> monochord/bichord, bichord/trichord, or
> >bass bridge/tenor bridge transitions without
> looking. All well under 9'6"
> >long, incidentally. It's doable, but you have to
> give up the old soundboard
> >and bridge configuration in favor of one that
> works.
> 
> I thought I made it clear the 9'6" thing was not
> serious, though clearly 
> the man who said it thought it was.  To me it was a
> joke.  Without changing 
> any bridges or anything, a perfectly acceptable
> break can be achieved on 
> any reasonable-sized grand or upright simply through
> good string scaling, 
> which like all piano things involves a good deal of
> the intuition of 
> experience besides the "science", much of which is
> contradictory and 
> devised by acousticians who play the trombone or
> something.  There are, of 
> course, cases where I would love to reshape the long
> bridge if the job 
> would stand it, but if a piano has lasted 100 years
> sounding good with a 
> less than perfectly shaped bridge, I reckon it
> deserves to carry on for 
> another 100 or so without losing its defects of
> character.  For example, it 
> is the high tension in the tenor of a Blüthner and
> the unusually thin cores 
> or the monochords that help to make up the "Blüthner
> sound".
> 
> JD
> 
> 
> 
> 


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