Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum copper wound tri cord?? on a mason hamlin AA question

Hi everyone. I saw a mason hamlin today and I noticed that it had some copper strings with 3strings for one note (I hope I am explaining this right) and it made the transition to the steel strings seem seamless. Could I have this done to my piano?

Probably could be done, the question is how well you want the alteration done and what do you hope to gain by doing it.

Modifying bi-chord wound to tri-chord wound properly would involve re-stringing, fabricating new bridge caps, modifying the hitch pins and the agraffes.

And drilling another hole in the plate/pinblock, of course.

As Ed has alluded to, it would be expensive. You could try hybrid scaling, which would entail replacing the notes near the break with either PureSound wire or probably Paulello type O wire and possibly replacing the bass strings. It's a much simpler way of going about this, as it would not require any modification of the bridge or plate, but not many technicians are familiar with this technique. You will have to find a technician with experience to evaluate the existing scale and make the appropriate changes. Ed happens to be one, and there are a few others on the forum, as well. Perhaps they will chime in.

What kind of piano do you have?

ddf

What works for one design of piano may have different results for another design. Did you notice the odd bridge for the Mason & Hamlin, or the change in the length of the strings?

Hi I have a A3from the 1920's

Hi i didnt notice (look) but i may go back friday and check this out
Thanks for your information.

Regards

Steinway A-3?

I think you are jumping to conclusions. The correct way to phrase your sentence would be: "I noticed that it had some copper strings with 3 strings for one note and it had a transition to the steel strings which was seamless."

If a seamless transition were achievable by simply using wound tri-chords, all pianos for the past 130 years would have had this feature.

A seamless transition is more the result of careful (and fortunate!) string, soundboard and scale design than simple number of wound strings.

So, to answer your question, depending on how it is done, wound tri-chords in your piano may be an improvement, or they may be a detriment, or they may make no noticeable difference. It is all in the design and execution.

Well,

Let’s have some English lesson shall we?

The transition of what? The OP’s sentence is ambiguous as it fails to describe what is being transitioned.



Maybe best to stick with piano technology.

I seem to be a lucky guy doing something similar successfully without profound knowledge just by intuition and trial.

I restored a hundred year old baby grand about two years ago. This was my first piano project ever. Doing the restringing I had help from another piano technician optimizing the scaling. The transition from the wound bi-chords to the steel tri-chords was very noticeable though. The transition from the the bass bridge to the long bridge was very good. The first three notes were already wound bi-chords on the long bridge.

But the first few steel tri-chords were more percussive and had another sound compared to the bi-chors. This was getting better going up the scale. Some notes later, the tri-chords sounded very similar compared to the bi-chords.

So I switched the first 5 steel-tri-chords to wound tri-chords. I have now an almost completely seamless transition.

I have a steinway A3

The easiest way to get the trichords is to trade your piano for an A1.

Trade my A3 in for an A 1? I don't think so!

There are a few other things you might try short of this.

Find a technician familiar with piano string scales and with the characteristics of the lower breaking strength music wire (Paullelo)now available.

While this is not a perfect solution it is the least intrusive way to improve the bass-to-tenor transition on these pianos.

ddf

I have an A3 in my living room and there is no room for the third tuning pin if you were to convert the wound bi-chords to tri-chords-if that is what you were thinking of. The lowest plain tri-chords can have the tone improved by changing the wire type to Puresound stainless and Paulello type O wire.

Not something you want to try as a DYI in my opinion.

Where do you live?

No, I wasn't thinking of converting anything to tri-chords that isn't already tri-chords. The bi-chords can easily be modified and the lowest tri-chords can be switched to different wire. Doesn't require any modifications to the string frame.

This may not make the bass-to-tenor transition perfectly seamless but it can be made be a lot less bad.

ddf

Sometimes, most often, the real success is in the bellywork and load.

Ooops,

The video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RND6Q5qZ5Rc