<!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 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hello list,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have a question. A grand piano about = 5 years old has dead bass strings. The customer had a fire in her kitchen and said = there was smoke damage that she cleaned up. She did not have insurance. It was = late in the day but I took 2 of the worst offenders loose, ran a loop of the wire up = and down the string and put a half twist in it and pulled it back to = tension. This revived these 2 strings nicely.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The sound board is quite dusty but I = see no soot. The action is also quite clean with no evidence of smoke soot. The worst = I can see is some rust on the treble strings.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My question is wether looping and = twisting the strings is a long term fix or should the strings be replaced. = </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What are your thoughts?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Norman Barrett</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Memphis, TN</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>