Twangy pianos + stringing

Ron Nossaman RNossaman@KSCABLE.com
Fri, 24 Nov 2000 09:20:38 -0600


> By any chance,
>might you have experimented  with breaking tension of twisted vs.
>untwisted strings.  Or, have you at least heard of twisting the string
>to increase its breaking tension?   (Am I really the only one on earth
>who has? Any old-timers out there? Any metals experts out there? I had
>always assumed it was common knowledge in the trade. Maybe I'm just
>hallucinating....)  -Joe       


Hi Joe,
Nah, I never thought for a minute that you were hallucinating. I had just
never heard of it until now, which seems kind of strange to me since I've
heard the twisted wire/false beat thing about twice a week from day one. In
any case, Tony came to the rescue. Of course, these days we have a
relatively easy way to determine what the tension and break% is on a
problem string and decide what OUGHT to be there instead of trying to fool
what WAS there into working without knowing why it didn't work in the first
place. We've come a long way since then, with a long way yet to go. So
while it may not be all that useful in practice, it's still interesting.
Jim Coleman did some breaking strength testing on wire when he worked for
Baldwin, looking for design specification benchmarks for different wire
types. I doubt if twisting was tested, but you never know. We might get
lucky. Jim????? Del, have you got anything on this????? 


Ron N


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