<html> <body> Mike, <x-tab>        </x-tab>Might be a silicone contamination but that still sounds pretty extreme. How are the becket holes? Are they rounded out or buggered up in some way? You could try making a reverse bend in the wire you left hanging out of the other side. Sounds like a fun little puzzle. Keep us posted ok? Greg Newell At 11:53 PM 5/28/2004, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Hi List,   I tuned a piano today.  Very nice Kawai console, about 17 yrs old.  It looks like it's 2 years old.  Piano is up to pitch.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  I tuned up to f#7 and broke that string.  I could almost "tell" it was going to break.  The pitch wasn't changing and the pin got harder to turn.  But, I wasn't focusing on that, so it broke.   Now comes the strange part.  I replaced the string.  As I was bringing it up to tension, it broke.  That's a first for me.  Let me start off by saying I think I'm a pretty good stringer.  Becketts are always tight in the pin, coils are perfect, the right number of coils and pin height is all perfect.  Ok....maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention when this string broke.  String number 2 (or three however you look at it)  put it on...again...perfect.  Finished tuning the piano.  Went back to touch-up tune the new strings and wow ....they dropped in pitch.  Ok...retune them.  retune them...retune them...retune them....HEY!  Something's going on here.  I stopped and tuned just one string.  As I tune, I bring it up to pitch, but now I keep playing the note with out turning the pin.  I can easily hear the pitch dropping.  I retune and the same thing.  I look at the pin, and the beckett is clearly slipping out.  Finally the whole thing pops out.  Damn...Next string I made sure there was wire poking out the other side.  Finished tuning it up and noticed the pitch was dropping on this new string too...Man how can this happen?   I let the customer know there may be a problem here in the future, as I'm getting frustrated at this point.  Pitch was still dropping when I left.  I'm thinking I may need to replace the tuning pin.  I know I could just put the wire through farther and bend it over like Baldwin does on their vertical pianos.   This shouldn't be happening right?  Like I said...I think I can string well enough, that that isn't the problem.    Any thoughts   Mike Bratcher</blockquote> <x-sigsep></x-sigsep> Greg Newell Greg's piano Forté <a href="mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net"= eudora="autourl">mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net</a></body> </html>