S&S "S" Treble wire

[Paul McCloud]

Stephen:
	Obviously the old wire held up for all this time, which is the
confusing thing about this.  Actually it started when our floor tuner
broke a string.  She was having trouble installing a new string, so I
offered to help.  I used her string, which broke.  Then I used my string
(Roslau) to see if hers was bad.  Same thing happened.  I'm going to try
the smaller wire as soon as I can get a hold of some.

Wim: I'm using my SAT, so I know I'm on the correct note.

For all the rest who responded, thanks.  I'll let you know what happens.

	Paul McCloud
	

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf Of Stephen Birkett
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 7:10 AM
To: Pianotech
Subject: Re: S&S "S" Treble wire

Paul asked:

>I am having a dilemma with a Steinway S in the highest 2 treble 
>strings.  I can t seem to get them to pitch without breaking.  I ve
tried 
>using emery cloth to smooth out the V bar.  No luck.  I ve lost count
of 
>how many times I ve tried different strings.  I m beginning to suspect
the 
>length of the strings in the speaking area is too long.  I ve measured
the 
>bridge pin to V bar on the B7note to be very near 2 ½ .  Is this 
>usual?  Other Steinways have lengths of 2 ¼ or less for the same note.
In 
>our store, we have just this one S .  It s about 15 years old.

I measured the note on my S&S 'S' (Hamburg, 1937). It's around 2 3/8".
The 
2.5" is too long. You're sitting around 1900 MPa, or about 80% breaking 
tension for #13 according to the Roslau data I have.

>  Would it be advisable to go to a 12 ½ gauge string instead of the 13 
> which is labeled on the plate?  It seems that the breaking strength of

> the wire is too close to the tension necessary to get the note to
pitch.  Help!

B7 on my S&S 'S'  is 0.8 mm, i.e. #13 gauge, as marked on your plate.
You 
could pick up a little extra strength by moving to a thinner gauge: #12 
(0.7 mm) would take you down to about 76% breaking tension.  But you
don't 
get much tensile pickup with high carbon steel wire. Best would be to
try 
it and see if that little bit might help. Alternatively, you could try a

different batch of wire - there's a lot of variation in specs. You might

get lucky.

What was on there before you got the piano? It can't have been breaking 
these wires for the past 15 years.

Warning: Calculations above done on only one cup of coffee, so likely to
be 
error-prone.

Stephen

Stephen Birkett Fortepianos
Authentic Reproductions of 18th and 19th Century Pianos
464 Winchester Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada N2T 1K5
tel: 519-885-2228
mailto: sbirkett@real.uwaterloo.ca
http://real.uwaterloo.ca/~sbirkett

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