I've always wondered about the three turn stringing coil. Why three?
Once three is accepted, four in the treble makes a sort of sense in
visually positioning the coil bottom the same above the plate to keep
the depth of the pin in the block similar in the treble as it is in the
tenor. In so doing, it also keeps overall pin height similar to limit
flagpoling. But is it real and necessary? And why three in the first
place? Coils will settle better with two turns than with three or four
with no penalty in function. Increased depth of the pin in the block
from fewer turns in the coil can be taken care of with shorter pins. The
block characteristics determine the pin length we can get away with, so
we have a choice in both. So why not two?
I've asked this periodically through the years, but I haven't yet gotten
an explanation for the three coil standard that makes sense.
Anyone care to be the first?
Ron N
Original Message------
Just saw this question with my name attached.
I use a piece of plastic tubing which I slip over the end of the wire, set the front end of the tubing at the plate hole and cut at the back end of the tube where the wire protrudes. This produces a uniform length for each note and gets the beckets aligned uniformly. I do like to see them that way, I just think it looks neater, though it's certainly not critical. I don't find it takes that much extra time. I use a 4" tube for the top treble which produces four coils and a three inch tube for the lower treble section, tenor and bass which produces three coils (approximately). Since there's more stretch in the bass I tend to measure that length to the front (speaking side) of the plate hole. In the upper end of the piano I measure to the back side.
The system does require that you pull the length of wire that you want and cut if from the spool first. In the treble section that's not hard to do as you can simply pull each section and hold it against the length between hitch and tuning pin area that you want. In the tenor where that is harder to reach I attach a measuring tape (tailor type) to the stretcher and measure periodically from pin area to hitch so I know approximately how long it needs to be. Pull the wire out , halve it and put the hitch pin bend by wrapping the wire around some needle nose pliers. Wrap the bend around the high and pull the ends through the cap or agraffe and then measure and cut. It does create a small amount of waste (usually just enough so that you run just short of what you need with the last spool of #17 wire), but that's just how I do it. In the bass, I insert the strings through the agraffe, slip the tubing over the end and slide it down to the tuning pin hole and cut the wire at the back end of the tube, same idea.
There are other methods, of course, and some don't like to pull the entire length they need first preferring to take the open end, wrap the pin and drive it, pull the wire around the hitch and back up and then cut it. That works too and is typical of factory settings where it's probably somewhat faster and produces less waste. If I did this all the time, every day I would probably use that system with an overhead delivery set up where I could just reach straight out to grab the wire and pull it straight down to the piano.
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David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-19-2014 07:02
From: Mark Davis
Subject: Measuring Steel Wire for each "doublet"?
David Love, you wrote at some time in the past ( I am not sure when, but it was from the old pianotech days), something along the lines of "Since I pull out and cut each piece of wire before winding them onto the first pin..." The context was putting CLP liquid on the strings before/during restringing pianos, so you were not
May I ask if you could expound on your statement above with regards to restringing, esp on how you measure for each doublet/How do you work out what length to cut before winding it on?
Thank you.
Regards,
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Mark Davis
Pianoforte Technologies
Piano Tuner/Technician
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