Hi, Jim
I wrote a Journal article about this in 2000. I think I called it "Freshening Strings."
I did several things at the same time. This was an SD-10 (1971, early one) with those termination fittings. It not only rendered horribly, it also tended to develop capo noises which practically sounded like a pocketful of loose change.
First, I let off all three strings of a unison enough to pull them to the side of their channel.
Then I took a strip of medium emery cloth and shoe-shined the (fairly) large-radius bearing area. It had had what looked like gold paint on it, but after shining it looked like a mirror surface. Then I pulled the wire out of the very large radius counter-bearing grooves (which I think was the source of most of the worst rendering) and laid a good layer of graphite into them using a 6B pencil.
Then I pulled everything back up to pitch, spaced, and tuned heavily.
Yes, the rendering and tonal improvements were permanent. In fact, they were everything I might have wished for. As I did this, repeated heavy concert tunings, and regulation and tail shaping, the piano stopped being an ugly duckling and started to get some social approval.
First I did this to the first capo. Later, having done it to the second capo but not being happy with the results (which I now think suffered from some layer separations in vertical laminations of the bridge), I restrung it. Looking closely at the old wire, I could see the flattening of bearing points very clearly.
It was later when I considered that letting the wire so far down had insured that it would not end up at quite the same place as it had started. I later used this technique on an early 20th Century 7 foot Baldwin with very covered tone and original wire. I didn't do all the other things to that piano. I just let down the wire about a perfect fifth and then pulled it back up. The tone improved a great deal. While I was gritting my teeth with a slightly sick grin moving that old wire so far, nothing broke. In fact, I've never broken a string doing this (well, so far.)
That's interesting, Bradley moving the wire so far up and down so many times. I wouldn't want to do that, but it's an interesting idea. It does seem to beg for the wire to break somewhat sooner than it might otherwise.
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Susan Kline
Philomath, Oregon
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-05-2017 10:19
From: Jim Ialeggio
Subject: False beats, CA glue and dulling the tone
Susan,
Did this re-positioning improve your rendering? Did it last?
I really wonder about the shape of the wire at these termination points, whether it is because there is a significant bend at the points which will not yield, whether it is worse with hardened terminations.
I was talking to Bradley Snook a year ago, as he was experimenting with dropping the pitch aggressively, ie a full octave and returning close to target repeatedly to clean up the sound of the string. He thought it had to do with back scale, but as I watched what he was doing I thought that he was work hardening the actual contact point of the string at the termination. That is, work hardening the side of the string that you cannot get to with massaging tools...the actual termination to string contact point...or maybe self-machining a perfectly fit termination. Not sure what's going on, but as a rendering improvement for strings that will not move, its interesting.
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Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-05-2017 03:06
From: Susan Kline
Subject: False beats, CA glue and dulling the tone
I would suggest something I tried on a Baldwin SD-10 with poor rendering. Let one side down quite a bit -- perfect fifth, for instance. Then let the other side of the string down less. Then pull up the second side first. You'll pull a little bit of wire around the hitch pin, and therefore you'll change all the places flattened and bent by contact with the bridge pins and the bearings. Essentially, you'll freshen the wire at the contact points.
Try it on one of the worst (most dead) notes and if it works, then do the others.
I don't think you need to scrape off or dissolve the CA glue. Some might scrape off by itself when you move the wire.
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Susan Kline
Philomath, Oregon
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2017 17:00
From: Jim Ialeggio
Subject: False beats, CA glue and dulling the tone
I don't think you need to scrape off/dissolve the CA . I'd just try loosening the strings and bringing them up to pitch a couple of times...one swift move down 1/4 turn and a swift move up, just shy of the old position...repeated. Once you break the bond, I think things will improve.
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Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2017 14:34
From: Neil Vanderschaaf
Subject: False beats, CA glue and dulling the tone
Any thoughts on a better way to clean up the mess would be greatly appreciated as well.
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Neil Vanderschaaf
Round Rock TX
512-577-1840
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2017 14:30
From: Neil Vanderschaaf
Subject: False beats, CA glue and dulling the tone
My wife is a piano teacher. My wife has some very important events coming up. I am a fledgling piano technician learning the craft now for about 4 years. She has a Steinway Model L and this year I was going to prep it as perfectly as I could for these up coming events. In the past I have struggled with the tuning of a number of notes in the upper register (CAPO section) due to false beats. Remembering the article in the Piano Technicians Journal (June 2016, False Beats: Part 3 by Ron Nossaman) I set about attempting the fix her piano using the remedy he championed: "The real cure is to address the cause and to immobilize the flag-poling of the pin with a couple of drops of thin cyanoacrylate, CA, or Super Glue. ..... I've been asked if this doesn't dull the tone. I don't think so. My experience is that it does sound different, but that's because the disordant stuff has been removed and it is cleaner sounding."
Maybe I did something wrong, but what happened to me is that the CA glue went under the string and bonded between the speaking length of the string and the bridge. This not only made the tone really dull but, of what you could hear, the pitch had been raised because it also effectively shortened the string. Because I got carried away before I figured out this was happening I applied the glue to over an octave of strings (all 3 of them per note) in the top octave of the piano. Now mama ain't happy and I'm not happy either because I'll have to spend a significant amount of time loosening the strings, lifting them up so I can soak the CA glue with acetone and scraping the residue off with a plastic scraper I'll have to make just for this job.
I'm curious. I know others have been following procedure. Any thoughts on what I could have done differently? The claim is that you should be able to do this without removing the strings, but I think that's what I will do in the future if I decide it is needed.
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Neil Vanderschaaf
Round Rock TX
512-577-1840
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