Hi J: Remove the broken coil from the tuning pin and also remove the coil from the other tuning pin shared by that one wire. Back out each tuning pin one full turn. Reel out enough wire to go down from one T-pin to the hitchpin and back up past the other. Add about 10" and cut the wire from the reel. Plan to bend the wire in the middle. The E4 hitchpin will probably be underneath the Bass strings, so if you have a pair of alligator jaw visegrips, after you put a 180 degree bend in the correct size wire (estimate the wire length liberally - any excess wire you may cut off later is small change), hook the wire over the hitchpin and clamp it in position with the alligator jaws. Pull both ends of the wire up past the pressure bar and over the tuning pins. Measure each wire 3" beyond its respective tuning pin and cut. This extra wire is used in making the coil around the tuning pin. It helps to put a slight bend in the wire to get it to feed under the pressure bar where you can grab it with long nose pliers. After you have a little tension on the wire, you can with the long nose pliers fit the strings around their respective bridge pins. I like to make my coils on a separate tuning pin (the coils will look nicer). A stringing crank is handy to use in making the coils, but it can be done quite well by just using your tuning hammer. Wind on 3 coils it will back off to 2 1/2 coils. Then with the nose pliers, I lift the becket and remove the extra tuning pin and place the coil over the real t-pin. With the nose pliers, I can then feed the becket into the becket hole of the t-pin. Do the same for the other end of the wire and the other t-pin. Begin to tighten the two tuning pins and with a string hook or the edge of a soft screwdriver lift the bottom of each coil as soon as you get enough tension on to hold the coil tight. Don't forget to retrieve your alligator jaw visegrips and check that the strings did not jump away from their bridge pins. Seat the strings at the hitchpin before you put complete tension on. Also space the strings before full tension is applied. You can save some extra tunings on the new strings if you seat the strings at the bridge pins, rub the strings down with a piece of wood, and tamp the coils after the strings are brought up to pitch (this will lower the pitch about 1/2 step) then bring up the pitch again about 1/2 step high and let set while you tune the rest of the piano or do some regulation work. Just before you leave, tune the strings properly. If this is an out-of-town call, put a front rail punching between the two new strings so that the rapid out-of-tuneness will not be so obvious until you return the next time to tune the piano. Jim Coleman, Sr. On Wed, 23 Jun 1999 JSmith3109@AOL.COM wrote: > I know that replacing strings is an easy repair for some of you, but I have > just not had a lot of experience doing this. I have to replace an E-4 string > in a Kohler & Campbell console for a church. > Any tips, thoughts, caveats, etc. would be most appreciated. Thanks in > advance. >
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