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<DIV>List,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Friday was certainly an interesting day on the job. First pi=
ano
was an old Erhard upright, a nice old box made in 1919, pretty good shape.&n=
bsp;
It had a broken high treble string on it, which I'd been aware of, and I
replaced it no problem.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Next piano, Acrosonic, circa 1950s. Pitch raise, twang, G#2 wound=
bicord snapped. A perfect candidate for one of the universal bass strin=
gs a
lug around. As usual, spinning off excess copper was the most time
consuming part of this job. Again, no real problem.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I was thinking about how much I've improved in various repairs, thanks =
to
many tips gleaned from this list and elsewhere in the PTG. This type o=
f
repair was once something I dreaded, now it's just something I do in the lin=
e of
duty. "But," I told myself, "don't get cocky. How long's it been=
since you've replaced a long wire in an understrung section of a piano?"&nbs=
p;
It had been awhile.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Which brings me to the next piano: Steinway, a regular client, a
nemesis piano that always finds a way to lengthen the appointment beyond an
acceptable length. A 1915 or so M re-whatevered badly a couple of deca=
des
ago. I was hoping for the best, but it was the usual 8-10 cent late-su=
mmer
pitch raise. No problem, at least until I got to A3. Twang. =
;
The A#3-A3 wire snapped. Went to the car, got stringing stuff includin=
g
tube to get string onto hitch pin. In the failing light of the day, I =
got
the job done, but time would have been saved had I brought in my shop light =
so I
could see better to route the wire through the bridge pins.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The upside: 3 strings on the day, no bloody finger tips.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The weirdness: Haven't had a string break in a few months. =
Why
did they all gang up on me on one day???</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Tip #1: putting some tension on the wire makes it MUCH easier to =
get
the string placed properly around the bridge pins in the understrung
areas. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Tip #2: Lighting is a good thing when doing this sort of job!</DI=
V>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks for reading,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Dave Stahl</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>