[pianotech] Spontaneous String Breakage

[James Johnson]

I had a similar experience with a customer's piano.  Their grand piano had a 
drink spilled in it in the area between the tunings pins and the capo.  The 
understring felt absorbed sugar from the drink, and even though the liquid 
was cleaned up, every time the humidity went up, the sugar in the felt 
attracted moisture causing the strings to gradually rust.  You couldn't see 
the rust from the top, but the bottom of the strings contacting the felt 
were rusty.  One night the humidity in the room went way up during a late 
summer rain and a whole section of strings popped during the night.  They 
kept hearing strange noises during the night, but couldn't identify what 
they were hearing till they tried to play the piano the next day.

I have had other customers report hearing strings pop during the night. In 
43 years of tuning, I have heard this complaint perhaps a half dozen times. 
Not real common, but also not unheard of.

Perhaps the moisture on the ship changed dramatically for some reason and 
the strings, already weakened by salt air, just snapped as the tension 
increased.

Jim Johnson
Cameron Park, CA


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "PJR" <pryan2 at the-beach.net>
To: <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 5:19 PM
Subject: [pianotech] Spontaneous String Breakage


> After being called three times in a six month period to replace broken 
> treble strings on a ten year old Yammy C6 piano on a ship,  I chided the 
> piano player (the only one) of having a heavy hand.  He confided that he 
> has never broken a string while playing.  They always break at night and 
> are there when he uses the piano the next day.  It has not been my 
> experience that strings break "in the night," but I haven't stayed up that 
> many nights observing them.  Was he jivin' me, or have others had this 
> experience too?
>
> Phil Ryan
> Miami Beach
>
>
>
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