[pianotech] Question about 19 1/2 wire

[Duaine Hechler]

On 04/13/2012 09:05 AM, Ron Nossaman wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 2:26 PM, Al Guecia/Allied PianoCraft wrote:
>> I am restringing a piano that calls for 19 1/2 wire (2 note - 6 strings)
>> near the tenor break after 4 notes (8 strings) that are wound. I find
>> that I am out of 19 1/2 (.044), so I borrowed some wire for another
>> tech, that wasn't tagged. I measured it and it reads (.0435). Might be
>> metric? What do you think, use it or wait for the 19 1/2, .044?I don't
>> think .005 will make mush of a difference, but it is at the break and
>> that causes me to worry. I hate thumpy sounding wire strings at the break.
>
>
> Al,
> There will always be people who will recoil in absolute horror that someone would even consider using a wire size that 
> isn't precisely identical to what was there originally, whether what was there originally was measured to anywhere 
> near this level of accurately or not. If you were to bother to check, as metric/english charts have been provided on 
> this list at least a dozen times since you've been here and you must surely have saved one, you would find that #20 
> metric is closer than #19 1/2. Or you could ORDER what you want and wait a couple of days to get  your EXACT heart's 
> desire. But everyone demands instant gratification without inconvenience, let alone actual work or waiting, right?
>
> Will what you have work? Yes. Will it be detectably different than the EXACT match. No, at least not by anyone in a 
> blind test. Will the low tenor break be thumpy? If it was before restringing, YES, certainly! The reason as I and 
> others who have bothered to learn something about scaling have said on this list repeatedly is that the low tenor 
> string lengths are too short for the required frequency and the break% of the wires too low. We have also repeatedly 
> said that changing wire sizes will NOT fix this, as the break% does NOT realistically change with wire gauge changes. 
> Fixing it requires changing bridges (therefore speaking lengths), and wishing otherwise won't change the reality.
>
> Regarding rescaling. As we've also said repeatedly on list, the big benefits to rescaling are in the wrapped strings, 
> where the broader choice of wrap and core gives some control of the outcome. Relatively very little in the way of 
> improvement is possible in the plain wire without changing speaking lengths. Anyone posting scaling questions to the 
> list - ever - needs to learn something about what they are doing instead of soliciting one answer to one question and 
> going back to where they were.
>
> That's it, the same old answers recycled yet again. No need to save it though. Someone will ask the same thing again 
> in a few weeks and we'll start from scratch once more.
>
> Ron N
>
It must be the fact that it's Friday 13th and/or you must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed today - chill !

<grin>

-- 
Duaine Hechler
Piano, Player Piano, Pump Organ
Tuning, Servicing&  Rebuilding
Reed Organ Society Member
Florissant, MO 63034
(314) 838-5587
dahechler at att.net
www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com
--
Home&  Business user of Linux - 11 years