It's Not Rocket Science

When I'm not out on thrilling hiking/camping adventures, I sometimes help Jim with his piano rebuilding business.  That involves working on piano actions and restringing pianos.  This past week I have been working on a Steinway grand that we have had in our living room for almost a year.  It required almost a total rebuild and we needed to store it until it was time to go to the refinishers, which will be next week.

We waited until it was closer to the time to send it out to the refinisher to do our work.  So this week I have been restringing this piano.  Like the blog title says, it's not rocket science.  Each treble note is made up of three strings and depending on where the note is the strings are different thicknesses.  I say strings, but it's really a special type of wire. 

I've got about 1/4 of the treble strung here.  This part takes the longest in stringing because the wire  is so long.  The bass strings go over the top of these treble strings.  They are premanufactured in Europe and are easy to install.

There are a ton of tools that piano technicians use.  Here are some that I am using for this job.

I use a chart that tells me what gauge of wire to use for each note.  I unwrap enough wire from the coil it comes in and then feed it through the a-graf and then wind it on a dummy pin.  I remove it from the dummy pin and place it on the permanent tuning pin.  I loop the wire over the top pin, through the bridge pins, through the next a-graf and wrap it around the dummy pin, then remove it from the dummy and place it on the permanent tuning pin.  I tighten the wire and make sure the coils are where they should be.  Thread, wrap, loop, thread, wrap, tighten, repeat.  It's not hard, but it is tough on the fingers when working on the heavier gauges.  Another thrilling day in my life.  Zzzzzzzzzzzz.