String Levelling guestions

[A440A]

Greetings, 
Richard wrote:
 >>Why should we be concerned now, when we weren't in the past? 
     and I replied, 


>      Whadda ya mean, we?  
Richard again:

> >By "we" I mean us piano technicians.   Wadda ya think it means?? 

    Now I can ask, whadda ya mean, us?.   The point is that you asked a loaded
question, inferring that "we" weren't concerned with this in the past.  Many
have been so "we" was more than I could sit still for.  
    I have  leveled strings since I went to school in 1976, primarily because
Eddie Coglin, (who helped teach Bill Garlick, who helped teach David Betts,
who helped teach me and many others) pointed out that it was the kind of
"fine" piano work that was expected of better brands.  This means to me, that
leveling strings was part of manufacturing as far back as the thirties, in
this country.   
     Leveling became as essential to voicing as the needles or tuning, so I
was casting my vote against separating them; ( I hate to see it as an
either/or decision).
    A grand can have all the agraffe wires checked and leveled in 15 minutes.
Even if this was done at the factory, in two years, the strings will have
traveled enough under the agraffes to need it again.  The time it takes to
level a string on a piano you will tune often is repaid by the time saved in
tuning clean unisons.  Plus it sounds better all the time. 
Regards, 
Ed Foote