down to the wire

[Erwinspiano at aol.com]

Hi All.
   This thread kind of died but I wanted to inquire of any  one on the list. 
Does any one have connections with the folks around the world  who produce 
music wire.  Any networking going on?   Anything?
  Regards
  Dale

>...What strikes me is that the plain wire on these  pianos is 
>superior to  what is being used today.  That it is,  for all 
>purposes, unbreakable, and  produces such a   consistantly nice 
>musical tone, baffles me.  How could steel  making  not be better 
>today than it was during World War I  ?
>       I service quite a few modern pianos in heavy  use.  They break 
>strings  and they have an enormously larger  number of false beats. 
>While bridge  notching and pinning and Capo  bar condition are each a 
>large factor in this, the wire itself creates  the quality of the 
>note.   I have had metallurgists tell me  that the contamination of 
>metals is a problem everywhere, as recycled  metals get mixed, to a 
>degree, and purity is expensive. And most of the  steel in this 
>country is made from recycling scrap.  But music  wire???
>      Anybody privy to the standards for metal  used as music wire today?

This topic has come up several times on the  list in my time, and at 
least twice I've given the results (from Dolge's  book) of the tests 
on Poehlmann wire conducted at exhibitions from about  1867 to 1895 
showing the terrific strength Poehlmann achieved.  Not  only was the 
wire stronger but it was far better polished and far less prone  to 
rust than any modern wire I have come across.  The colour was also  
different.  I don't know what effect the addition of recycled steel  
to the mix makes -- I can't see that it would do any harm if the 
steel  added was of the correct quality to begin with, and I suppose 
that's the big  question.  I think there are probably still good 
special steels for  specific engineering uses, and probably steels 
that were not available 100  years ago, but by and large my experience 
is that modern steel is  rubbish.  I have tools from the 18th and 19th 
centuries that almost  refuse to rust, and if you force them to rust 
they can still be just gently  rubbed over with steel wool to come up 
birght again.  As to piano wire,  who cares?!  I have complained so 
many times to suppliers and direct to  Messrs Roslau and seen little 
improvement over the years.  A few years  ago I talked to Webster and 
Horsfall, makers of the original patented wire,  about producing wire 
to the old Poehlmann specs, and I'm thinking of  approaching them 
again.

There are wires made with a better polish  than R. and some of them 
are usable, but they all go rusty, whereas  Poehlmann wire in a good 
environment rusts with great difficulty and very  superficially.

As a bass string maker I know of noone among my  competitors who is 
satisfied with the quality of the wire from the main  maker.  We all 
want something better, but it would take a lot of time  and expense to 
achieve it, presuming that it is  possible.

JD







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