In a message dated 2/8/00 5:22:45 AM Pacific Standard Time, jonpage@mediaone.net writes: << I would like to heard more about loading the board and other chipping techniques. >> I don't claim to know everything about stringing or rebuilding, I just have my own experience and what I know from working with others. When I do any job, I try to get the longest, most difficult part done first. Therefore, I start with the tenor and work upwards. I do the wound strings last. I used to pull the string to a whole tone low using a pitch pipe wanting to avoid "overstressing" the board or whatever it was that I wanted to avoid. Then I got braver and tuned to 1/2 step low. Then I realized that pulling the string all the way up to pitch would not create any problem so that's what I do. I know that many stringers simply put enough tension on the string for it to hold in place. But I found that if I did that, I ended up with some strings already above pitch and others loose enough that the coils would spread. It was chaos to do the first chipping. If each string is pulled up to pitch as it is installed, it will quickly fall in pitch as it settles and the others next to it are installed. The first two chippings will still be pitch raises but they will be more or less evenly below pitch so that pulling the string up to pitch can be done with one or two even strokes of the tuning hammer. That's how a chipping can be accomplished in about 15 minutes. The operative word in your comment was "could". I have often heard people warn not to do something based solely on a notion that turned out not to be true. One good example I remember well was when I mentioned at a seminar back in the mid 1980's that I would put two 25 watt Dampp-Chaser dehumidifiers under a grand in order to get more dehumidifying power. The immediate comment was, "Oh Bill! That's too much heat!" A few years later, Dampp-Chaser came out with 50 watt dehumidifiers and multiple rods under a grand became standard practice. I wonder if that person still thinks what I was doing and still do puts "too much heat" under the piano. So, if any of the rebuilders on the List who really understand stresses and such in the piano can prove to me that pulling up a string all the way to pitch while stringing could really damage the piano, I'd like to read the information and data that support that claim. Otherwise, I'll consider this notion that many people do have, to be just another thing that people seem to think that has never had any basis in fact. I know of a few others, to be sure. Regards, Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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