Broken Strings

[Greg Torres]

Dear Arthur, Les & list,

I always give a disclaimer before proceeding as to string breakage. When a string
breaks at the tuning pin on lesser quality instruments or ones who haven't been
tuned in over 2 or 3 years I find that it is better to try using the old wire first
because if successful the tuning on that particular note is generally much more
stable. If it is a customer with a finer quality piano and I know they fully
understand the situation then I prefer to replace the wire, scheduling another
service call in a month or so.

As to the string stretchers I have found that it is a good tool for re-stringing
but it tends to throw the surrounding notes slightly out of tune. I just make sure
I get a good becket and nice tight coils. No matter what I've tried I still have to
come back at a later date to touch up or re-tune. I have tried leaving the note a
little sharp to allow for stretching but I and my customers prefer it to be in tune
when I leave. And either way you still have to come back and tweak it.

Regards,
Greg Torres

Les Smith wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Feb 1998 PDtek@aol.com wrote:
>
> >
> > While we are on the subject, I would be curious to know what others do with a
> > broken plain wire, reuse the wire or replace it? Do you charge for return
> > trips to retune the string? Mute it till next tuning? How about bass strings?
> > Do you use universal bass strings and on what quality of piano?
>
> On the subject of plain wire replacements, I have a question I don't think
> I've seen addressed before. The problem, of course. is that the new wire
> is rapidly going to stretch out and go flat, which is really going to be a
> bummer if the note in question happens to be in the middle of the keyboard
> where it's played all the time. Tuning it sharp and muting it until the
> next tuning is certainly a possibility, but the note is really going to
> sound weak if only one string of a three sring unison is left sounding.
> My question is: How effective are those wheel-type string-stretchers and
> is there anyone out there using them with any regularity in situations
> like this? Thanks.
>
> Les Smith