[pianotech] bass twisting direction

[Bruce Dornfeld]

These perspective things are fun to communicate by E-mail, huh?  The
direction of the bass string twist should be in the direction that the end
of the coil points.  If you do this from either end of the string, you will
get the same result.  Or to say it another way; if you twist the hitch pin
end a half turn clockwise, and then twist the tuning pin end a half turn, it
would also be clockwise from that side of the piano.  The string would end
up with one full twist.  Why anyone would do it this way is beyond me, but I
hope you get the point.

 

There is one reason I do not like to give all bass strings much twist that
has not been mentioned, unless I missed it: the direction of twist in the
hitch pin loop.  The big bass string supplier in my neck of the woods,
Schaff, and other strings I sometimes see are made with what looks like a
problem.  When you give that twist in the direction that will help tighten
the copper winding, it is the direction that will unwind the hitch pin loop.
I cannot claim to have seen any problems as a result of this, but it seems
that there are a few things that might result.  One is that the hitch pin
loop is so tight that it will not change and there is no problem.  Another
possibility is that the hitch pin loop will quickly relax enough that there
is very little twist left in the string.  The third possibility is that the
hitch pin loop will slowly unwind over a period of years.  This would also
leave less twist in the string over time and would make the winding move
closer to the agraffes and farther from the bridge.  Am I the only one
bothered by this?  It would not be the first time I overthought a thing.

 

I do wish this came up sooner, last week I put a new set of Arledge bass
strings on a M&H A with no twist.  Now I wonder if I should twist them all
when I go back with the action next week.  I also made reservations for
Grand Rapids and registered for the convention this week.  I look forward to
seeing many of you there!  

 

Bruce Dornfeld, RPT

bdornfeld at earthlink.net

North Shore Chapter

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090424/abd27572/attachment.html>