[CAUT] When to restring...

[Jim Busby]

Hi Paul,

I'm interested in what people say here...

It certainly depends on a lot of factors, but we restring when strings start breaking a lot, and/or there is other work needed anyway. In Utah rust is not an issue, but in teaching studios at about 7 years or so it seems strings start popping. We sometimes do the upper two sections only. At about 15 years or so (on our studio Bs) they all seem to need new bass and plain wire. Now, that's here in dry Utah, with pianos that are played a LOT!

 Most S&S don't need new tuning pins until the second restringing. It's a pain, but we treat the first restringing like normal string break replacements (i.e. don't take the pin out) We have 7 Ms from 1964 and torque is still very good. The block will tell you...

On a full restring we replace bridge pins, but on partial we put one drop of CA. Works for us. (Eliminates most false beats)

We never replace agraffes, mainly because we refurbish them like Paul Revenko-Jones does. WAY better than new ones because new ones aren't shaped correctly either. Waste of time to just replace them.

That's some of what we do here. About 4-5 pianos per years. Make students do it <G>.

Best,
Jim Busby BYU

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul T Williams
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 10:21 AM
To: CAUTlist
Subject: [CAUT] When to restring...

Hi all,

When do you all decide when to restring a grand?  I have now in the shop a S&S M from the 60's from one of our classrooms.  Besides an action overhaul with new hammers, shanks and flanges, I'm considering restringing.  It is original (I think) with lots of corrosion on the plain wires.  The bass isn't the worst I've heard, but a new set of strings there is probably a good call.  I haven't yet checked the bridge pins, but it's riddled with false beats throughout, so I'm thinking of loose bridge pins and poor termination points.  The downbearing is fine and the board and pinblock are fine as well....for it's age and vintage.

Typically, when I restring, I replace bridge pins as well as agraffes and tuning pins.  Do you go this far? not as much? farther?  I'm not in any hurry on this one as I put a "loaner" grand in the classroom for fall semester.

Thanks for any input.

Best,
Paul T. Williams RPT
Univ. of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE
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