TP coils

[Delwin D Fandrich]

James,

I can't speak about any other factories, but when I complained about this practice at
Baldwin I was told that this practice had been developed to prevent the string from
slipping out of the hole. (In Baldwin's case the string goes entirely through the hole in
the pin -- by several mm -- and is then bent back around the pin making its removal quite
difficult.) When I pointed out that if the string was simply inserted into the hole and
made flush with the other end the string would still be held quite securely, I was told
that in the rush of production they couldn't be sure that the stringer would get the
string all the way to the end of the hole unless they had this visual aid. Apparently, at
one time in the companies history, one or two had come loose. It also made pulling the
coils up tight somewhat easier since there were now two mechanical stops; one on each side
of the pin.

This practice was -- and still is, I think -- restricted to the vertical pianos only.
Apparently the grand stringers are able to figure out where the end of the hole is all on
their own.

When destringing one of these pianos the "coil-breaker" tools don't work very well. They
get hung up on the bent-over end. I even tried getting in there with a modified cold
chisel. In the end, I found it was often easier to simply cut the wire as close to the pin
as possible and back the whole mess out together. Pin, coil and everything. Yes, well, as
I said, it's a mess. It was just a bit less bad than the alternatives.

-- ddf

------------------------



pianoman wrote:

> Hi All,
> Just wondering what the rest of you thought about the practice of putting
> the wire all the way through the becket with enough left over to  go some
> more around the tuning pins.  Seems like I remember that Baldwin was the
> first to do this some years ago and I figure it had something to do with a
> device they used for coiling.  It seems that this would really mess up the
> person who was unstringing these pianos for rebuilding.  Any thoughts?
> James Grebe
> R.P.T. of the P.T.G. from St. Louis, MO. USA, Earth
> pianoman@inlink.com
> "A wonderful thing happens when you start promoting--Opportunities for
> work.".