Bridgetop Extravaganza Revisited

[Jon Page]

Good point, Ed. All of which I do, but neglected to mention. You must 
monitor the pitch
during the process so that you won't be addressing a slackened wire.

If a piano is slightly sharp, it is an opportune time to attend to the 
hitch pin loops
and bridge pin terminations. Then pitch-raise and tend to the front 
terminations.

Regards,
Jon Page

At 08:43 AM 12/18/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Jon writes:
> >As detailed in the Renner USA pamphlet on voicing by Rick Baldassin. This
> > removal of the natural curve
> >in the wire starts at the rear duplex, then the bridge pins, then the front
> > termination at the capo bar.
>
>     If I might add some to this; I think the removal of the natural curves
>should include the the two sides at the hitch pin.  Strings which were
>installed a year before, and had all the above curves settled in, will still
>measurably drop when the wire is given a squeeze on either side of the hitch
>pin!  So, does it not stand to reason that the rear-most bend should be
>eliminated also?  If you have previously straightened the wire curves on the
>distal side of the bridge pins, the slight movement of this rear-most
>straightening will then allow the bends to move toward the speaking length
>and center themselves on the  bridge pins. After which, a very light tap
>will further straighten out the wire behind and in front of the bridge.
>     In following this idea out,  the tighter coiling on bass string hitch 
> pin
>loops also has a lot of slack in it.  On bass strings that have been
>installed long enough to be "stable", it is still common to cause a 5-10 cent
>drop simply by grabbing the tight part of the hitch pin loop with a pair of
>Vice-grips set to pretty snug, and gently rocking it from side to side.
>    On restringing jobs, I like to chip twice to about 8 cents sharp before
>doing ANY of this straightening.  If time allows, a few days of settling
>between the chippings is good.   Whereas a new piano seems to take a year or
>two to settle down,  that is the soundboard and case relaxing. When I replace
>a broken string in an old piano, it can be stable in a week, so I don't think
>the stability problems are in the wire, itself.
>     For stability, the tuning pin coil must be tightened, as it will have
>some slack in it,no matter what.  This can be minimized by tight coils, then
>tightening the becket, and then leveling them.  Even after this, it will be
>found that grabbing the coil with pliars and twisting it in the direction of
>its turn will cause a significant drop in pitch as it winds more tightly on
>the pin.
>     It is also wasted effort to attempt to level the strings on a piano that
>hasn't had the strings settled, since it takes very little movement under the
>agraffe to go back out of level.
>Ed Foote RPT
>www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/
>www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
>
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