Phil, Several thoughts First, I generaly subscribe to Jim Harvey's "Rule of Six." If 6 or more of any one item breaks or is broken, then the whole set needs to be replaced. This could potentially apply here. Second, did the strings show particular amounts of rust? Did you lower them to break the rust bond at the bearing points before raising the pitch? How much pitch correction was involved? Several things that can have a bearing (no pun intended) on the situation. Third, what did the break itself look like? Wolfenden addresses this and describes several patterns of breakage in his book. (I'm sure plenty of other folks have since then and I've heard it brought up in classes by people like Ray Chandler and Jim Ellis.) Fourth, are you heading up to the convention? If so, bring a sample or two along and ask some of the folks who have a lot of experience in the field and you'll be aat all the things you'll find out. Hope this helps a little and look forward to seeing some of you folks from the list next week. Allan Allan L. Gilreath, RPT Gilreath Piano & Organ Co. Calhoun, GA USA Gilreath@aol.com In a message dated 98-07-02 21:39:25 EDT, you write: << 'm a newbie at tuning and ran across this situation- I was tuning an old (1920's) Edward Mason grand with the original strings. A quarter of the way through, pop! broke a treble string. No problem, I need the practice installing strings.Then pop!, another one. Pop...pop...pop...all the way up to ten broken treble strings, five or six notes apart, before I quit. Yes, I used liquid wrench on the vbar and agraffes. My question is- how many strings should one break before declaring the piano untunable and in need of a restringing or rebuilding. The owner is only interested in having it "tuned." Any advice? Phil Ryan Associate, PTG pryan2@bellsouth.net >>
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