Piano History

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussions: Piano History and CAUT .
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In the UK during the 1930's stainless steel piano wire was briefly tried and abandoned because of its low breaking point. The Pure Sound wire is a repetition of history. Nickel plated wire was also tried. It is perhaps provocative to say that the only factor that made the modern piano possible was the development of high tensile steel wire. Wire makers vied with each other to increase the strength of their wire, as well as other desirable properties. Steinway developed a testing machine to ensure the quality of the product. In 1960 I started making bass strings because of the poor quality of the strings available at that time. Back then the wire was available in two grades, bass and treble. There was also wire which was called Music wire which had a much lower breaking point and could not be brought to pitch. Once, I attempted to make strings with the treble wire and it simply shattered when I tried to make the loops. There was a good deal of dissatisfaction among technicians with the bass strings, and much theorizing about why they were so poor and opinions on how they should be made. I shared many of these, but soon discovered I had to drop any preconceived notions. The owner of the supply house in Toronto which made the poor strings panicked because he thought I would be competing with him, made the 120 mile trip to check me out. I had no intention of going into the bass strings as a business. He said he could not understand why I would want to waste my time, as all bass strings were the same, simply a core wire with copper wire spun round them.. I replied that if he really believed that, he had identified the reason his strings were so bad. Later, an action maker went into the bass string business and hired me as a consultant, thus avoiding a lot of teething problems.

Ted Sambell
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Edward Sambell
London ON
519-474-7597
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Thanks for the post.
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Melissa Warren
Lawrence KS
785-749-5000
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Original Message:
Sent: 11/24/2014 1:10:33 AM
From: edward.sambell@hotmail.com
Subject: Piano wire

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussions: Piano History and CAUT . ------------------------------------------- In the UK during the 1930's stainless steel piano wire was briefly tried and abandoned because of its low breaking point. The Pure Sound wire is a repetition of history. Nickel plated wire was also tried. It is perhaps provocative to say that the only factor that made the modern piano possible was the development of high tensile steel wire. Wire makers vied with each other to increase the strength of their wire, as well as other desirable properties. Steinway developed a testing machine to ensure the quality of the product. In 1960 I started making bass strings because of the poor quality of the strings available at that time. Back then the wire was available in two grades, bass and treble. There was also wire which was called Music wire which had a much lower breaking point and could not be brought to pitch. Once, I attempted to make strings with the treble wire and it simply shattered when I tried to make the loops. There was a good deal of dissatisfaction among technicians with the bass strings, and much theorizing about why they were so poor and opinions on how they should be made. I shared many of these, but soon discovered I had to drop any preconceived notions. The owner of the supply house in Toronto which made the poor strings panicked because he thought I would be competing with him, made the 120 mile trip to check me out. I had no intention of going into the bass strings as a business. He said he could not understand why I would want to waste my time, as all bass strings were the same, simply a core wire with copper wire spun round them.. I replied that if he really believed that, he had identified the reason his strings were so bad. Later, an action maker went into the bass string business and hired me as a consultant, thus avoiding a lot of teething problems. Ted Sambell ------------------------------------------- Edward Sambell London ON 519-474-7597 -------------------------------------------