<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1170" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE>  </STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY lang=EN-US vLink=purple link=blue> <DIV>David:<BR><BR>With a hard player, string breakage is inevitable.  If it originally went 4 years without string breakage, I'd really recommend restringing the top two sections.  I have some major string breakers here at SMU and that's the only thing that helps.  All but one of our practice room grands are Steinway "Ls" and "Ms".  It's not the size, it's the force of the playing.  The strings pass their elastic limit too many times there at the capo bar and the cumulative effect is broken strings.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>dave<BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********<BR><BR>On 6/9/2003 at 7:48 PM David V. Anderson wrote:</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid"> <DIV class=Section1> <P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I’ve got a Wurlitzer C-143 (Samick) about 6 years old, which has become a habitual string breaker.  I’m going out at the end of the week.  Since I haven’t seen this piano for months, I can’t remember the capo/agraffe configuration, but it seems to me that all the breakage is in octaves  5-7.  Not confined to a particular wire size.  The capo shape doesn’t seem particularly aggressive.  The breaks occur on long enough strings to rule out a misplaced plate, I believe.(I haven’t taken measurements yet)  I have only seen the piano over the last year, but this apparently started about four years into service.  I know the condition of the hammers was allowed to deteriorate before I first saw the instrument.  Private home, hard player.  I suspect that the simple combination of a heavy player on a small instrument with Ľ”+ of hammer contact is the cause, and that even though the hammer shape has been corrected and is being maintained, the damage has already been done.  Is there a brand-specific issue here, or something else I’m missing?  I feel a musician would be better served with a larger piano for a variety of other reasons, but is there a correlation between a smaller instrument and accelerated wear?  He’ll be making a decision between simply giving restringing the upper sections a try or upgrading the piano.  I’d like some input to back my recommendation.</SPAN></FONT></P> <P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></SPAN></FONT> </P> <P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">David V. Anderson, RPT</SPAN></FONT></P> <P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Milwaukee</SPAN></FONT></P> <P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></SPAN></FONT> </P></DIV><FONT size=2 Arial></BLOCKQUOTE>**************** END MESSAGE FROM David V. Anderson *********************</FONT> </BODY></HTML> <PRE> _____________________________ David M. Porritt dporritt@mail.smu.edu Meadows School of the Arts Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275 _____________________________</PRE>