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Sorry, guys, I was hoping you'd see the pics here!

This is SO frustrating! I'll try to figure out how to upload pictures as attachments into PianoWorld. Failing that, I'll post the pictures here on Monday, via my Picasa Web-album.

Here they are:






This is one of the strings that touches the coils of a neighboring string. I deliberately turned the pin slightly deeper into the pinblock, to gain some new grip. This gave me some space to feed the wire behind the coils of the neighboring string, rather than over them (see first picture). There is now less of a kink in the wire than before, and the rendering friction, although still high, is much less than before.

Again: thanks to all who helped.

Nice, neat knot!

Inquiring minds want to know. What happened to the pin bushing in the neighboring pin? Looks like it was never installed.

Nice neat knot.

Nice neat knot Mark!

The only thing I would comment negatively on is the kink in the becket where it enters into the tuning pin. It shows that you turned and tightened the tuning pin prior to continued "nudging" and pushing of the becket into the tuning pin before you tightening up the wire around the tuning pin completely. Make sense? I will usually give many pushes on the becket sliding the pliers in a circular motion, around the tuning pin with whatever I am using. Generally, a flat nosed curved voicing pliers. Yep, this has more than one use! This helps to nudge it into the hole further and to make it stay tighter. It will look neater in that area too. I do this as often as necessary to keep the becket tightened up watching it and then repeating it whenever I have too, to keep it good and tight in that area. It'll make for a more stable tuning too.

Other than that, it looks great!

Nice eye Dale.

Jerry,

Critique noted. This becket was in action on my test-jig (a 4x4 log), to pull the knot tight at -100 cents, then I transferred it into the piano for a preliminary tensioning, and once the pitch was at perhaps -500 cents, I loosened (un-hitched) it one more time to give the tuning pin an extra half-a-turn and re-tighten the coil. So the becket has been through some mileage... On the other hand, I compared it to the neighboring beckets and coils and tuning pins, and they actually look pretty similar (see last picture).

And yes, tuning stability leaves something to be desired: the note dropped about 1 Hz (2 cents) in 24 hours. I've corrected that.

Dale: the bushing that seems missing in the second picture is actually visible in the third picture. Many of the bushings in this piano are somewhat recessed. I have no idea why this is the case. On the other hand, some bushings protrude on the string side, and actually look as though they are "oozing" from the plate.

I can only conjecture that this has to do with the humidity fluctuations that we see here.

Nice!Thanks for posting such great pictures!

Mark,

Your knot is a true work of art! Only a very minor scratch on the plate which can be avoided using a good coil lifter. Such marks can be touched up if you have the right touch up paint. All considered, I have never seen a finer knot tied by anyone!

As Jer mentioned about the beckett, either when installing a new string or in the case of a spliced string, the beckett has to be closed before too much tension is placed on the string. If the beckett starts to bend, it is too late. If the coil ends up spread, you can loosen the tension to lift it but again, watch that beckett so that it doesn't slide out and if it does, close it back before you can't anymore. I use a medium size pair of vice grips for that.

When I use the remnant of the broken string, I already know there won't be three full coils. That is why I place the tiny hook on the opposite side of the tuning pin from where the string enters. I do that with single string replacement too for two reasons: I don't have to close the beckett and I know that the string cannot slip within the tuning pin hole, so it eliminates that part of potential instability. The hook can be so small as to barely be visible. If you are using the "dummy pin" method which is really the best, all you have to do is make the beckett protrude on the dummy pin about 1/16-1/8" (but no more than that). Grab that protruding end with needle nose vice grips and make a quick 90º bend in it. If the bent end sticks out after pulling up the tension, you can lay it back down with the same vice grip pliers that you would use to close the beckett. It will look neat and professional and will, as I said, eliminate any instability from the beckett itself.

If you were taking the PTG Technical exam, you would get full points for the knot and coil but on the exam, the coil should not be any lower than normal; just so you know. Normal is defined as the wire being perfectly perpendicular to the tuning pin an parallel to the plate. I understand why you had to do that in this case and that's fine. Also, the hook that I suggest is a "no-no" for the exam. The wire should not protrude on the other side at all. If you keep those two things in mind should you ever want to take that exam, you will get a perfect score.

Congratulations on a great job and great photography!

I'm glad you could see your way clear to compliment it, Loren, even though I know you disagree with ever using it.

EXXXXXcellent! (Wish I could say my first knot in a piano looked like yours!)

Ron Koval

Thanks, Bill! Actually though, I've softened my stance on it after carefully considering the respected opinions of the many fine fellow technicians who post here. I can see the reason and usefulness of splicing bass strings when a new one would sound out of place (the goal being to keep the bass section uniform in sound without notes standing out). On treble strings, I would still advocate replacement since there really is no noticeable difference in sound between old and new plain wire, but on bass strings, I've seen the logic (and the light!).

And that knot is a work of art, especially considering that was a first-timer!

Wow, I am honored by such heaped compliments from professionals. Thank you!

I did a lot of practise knots before attempting this one. Specifically, I experimented with the correct length of the tails, so that they don't need to be trimmed afterwards, because my piano wire cutter is quite bulky (scissor type, not side-cutting type) and would never fit in that area between the tuning pins.

Bill:

I don't think that small scratch happened during fitment of the spliced string. I was extremely careful when lifting the coils, and covered the plate with a business card before taking any tools to the coils. The scratch mark sits exactly where the old string broke, and the twist on the string was such that when it broke, it would have whipped against the plate. Anyway, I'll look for some touch-up paint, because the hitch-pin has almost completely lost its paint, and the tail of the loop has also scratched the plate next to the hitch-pin. I had to do a lot of wiggling to get the loop off and back on. [EDIT: German loops that circle the hitch-pin twice.] This paint is very soft, and hardly adheres to the hitch-pins! Even a fingernail will remove it. And while I'm at it, I'll touch up some deep gouges and chips that previous tuners have left in the pin-fields of the plate.

Regarding that becket, you hit the nail on the head:



This is exactly what happened! The coil had indeed spread, so I backed off some tension, and while I was fussing to lift the coil without scratching the plate paint, the becket must have slipped out of the pin ever so slightly. Not having a decent coil lifter (mental note: reminder to self!), and not having three hands, I decided to put some tension on the lifted coil, to keep it more stable, and then push the becket back in. That was my mistake, I now realize!

Like my one uncle, a maths professor, used to say:
"Hindsight is the only exact science."

Well, some of the other beckets in the piano look no better, so being my own technician and client, I can live with it. It's a learning curve.

Bill, is there any time limit on this part (or other parts) of the PTG exam? I ask this because I am a very conservative, meticulous worker, so it took me about an hour, including the pre-tensioning on that 4x4 log. (Not that I would take a 4x4 log to the exam or to clients -haha- ; I just used that to spare my pinblock any unnecessary turning, by stabilizing the knot before it goes into the piano.)

The note does sound slightly softer (less metallic and slightly lower volume) than its neighbors. The spliced string is properly seated, I definitely saw to that. The termination bend in the string pointed exactly the other way after it broke, so the factory must have put half or one-and-a-half twists on the string. Being hex-core, I decided to give it only half a twist, not one-and-a-half. Could this be the reason for the softer tone?

I do admit, I did put a couple of hours of (careful) playing time on the piano while only one of the two strings was installed. I hope I haven't hurt the hammer or damper...

That is a wonderful job, Mark.

[quote=Mark R.
Bill, is there any time limit on this part (or other parts) of the PTG exam? I ask this because I am a very conservative, meticulous worker, so it took me about an hour, including the pre-tensioning on that 4x4 log. (Not that I would take a 4x4 log to the exam or to clients -haha- ; I just used that to spare my pinblock any unnecessary turning, by stabilizing the knot before it goes into the piano.)

The note does sound slightly softer (less metallic and slightly lower volume) than its neighbors. The spliced string is properly seated, I definitely saw to that. The termination bend in the string pointed exactly the other way after it broke, so the factory must have put half or one-and-a-half twists on the string. Being hex-core, I decided to give it only half a twist, not one-and-a-half. Could this be the reason for the softer tone?

I do admit, I did put a couple of hours of (careful) playing time on the piano while only one of the two strings was installed. I hope I haven't hurt the hammer or damper... [/quote]

Mark,

there are time limits on the test. I think, (not looking at my exam book) it is either 8 or 10 minutes for the splice. The parameters are a knot that will hold under tension with legs 1/4 inch or less and no discernible kinks that might lead to breakage. Also, the tuning pins need to end up in close tolerance to the same height as their neighbors.

You may want to check hammer to string mating, AKA string leveling for the tone/volume issue. If the strings are not both being struck at the same instant this can cause both voicing issues and phase issues. IOWs the strings won't sound quite in tune though they are.

Dale,
Good point, thanks, I'll do so.

Yesterday I did this splice on a Hofmann Console from the 60s; definitely the most difficult one I've done yet in the field.

I did two pitch raises and a fine tuning on it 5 weeks ago - it was down 175 cents in some places. E5 broke at that time, but it broke right at the V-bar, so I had to replace the complete wire.

Yesterday it was down about 6-12 cents overall, and during the tuning C5 broke, but it broke behind the pressure bar, so I was able (and quite lucky!) to make a splice.



When I formed the loops (ala the Bill Spurlock method using Vise-Grips) the whole thing was actually under the V-bar, but I was hoping that the tension would bring it up and over. So the biggest challenge was estimating the best place to cut the old wire before forming the loop. I was indeed somewhat lucky...

I'm not sure if this repair would have been possible using traditional splicing techniques. Spurlock's method is awesome because you form extremely tight knots that allow lots of flexibility with approaches, and big loops might not have made it over the bar. (For those wanting details, the new leader wire which eventually goes to the tuning pin gets a tight loop, and is slid over the old wire, loop end first. Then a loop gets formed on the old wire as a mirror image, and the unlooped end of the new leader is then threaded through the loop of the old. Then a new coil is formed on a dummy pin and transferred to the pin in the piano.)

I've done this repair several times in the field but in those cases the splice was always in the tuning pin area, and much easier. So this was satisfying - and I'm glad I practiced this 100 times on the bench; makes it less stressful when the client is watching!

It looks like the splice is interfering with a neighboring string but it's just barely touching it, so it doesn't affect the tuning of that string.

This piano has a string breakage problem (and the heavy tarnish/light rust doesn't help) and the client has been made aware that every time I tune this thing a string may pop. So I feel this is the best repair because it saves return visits to retune as it is 90% stable already. Although the one thing I don't like is that there is a greater deflection of the wire at the V-bar now, due to the loops, so only time will tell if it holds up. I also wish the ends of the wire were just a hair shorter, so I may put a mark on my Vise-Grips as a gauge for future splices. (My blue xenon wire cutters can't get close enough for trimming work.)

I also found yet another use for my Hart spring tool yesterday: repositioning the plain wire on the bridge pins through the bass strings. I have "the stringer" which comes with a bridge wire positioner but you need adequate room between bass strings to use it, which I didn't have. The Hart tool is amazing!

'Good job! Every time I see a repair like this I know that the tuner was probably sweating bullets, and he's darned good.

Pretty.

Wow. That looks meticulous and obviously a result of some practice.

Very nice work James!