Aluminum-wound strings

Aluminum-wound strings

by SJ Piano ServiceNo Comments
Those extra shiny strings are aluminum-wound, somewhat of a novelty in the late 1960's when this piano was built. Though these have held up well, aluminum-wound strings as a rule have never caught on and are all but extinct now. In this case, the aluminum winding was seen as a "transition" from the copper-wound bass strings to the plain wire treble strings. Manufacturers have tried dozens of different ways of bridging this transition point over the years, with varying results. Gordon Laughead was a small, family-run, Michigan-based piano manufacturer that operated from the 1940's until the 1970's. They made good quality pianos, and this particular one was a testament to that fact. Unfortunately, like hundreds of other piano manufacturers, they eventually succumbed to an over-crowded market. ...
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Copper-wound vs. plain wire strings

by SJ Piano ServiceNo Comments
Did you know that about a third of the piano is strung with copper-wound strings? The lower notes use copper winding because the extra mass helps create lower pitches; without that extra mass, pianos would have to be 20-30 feet long just to have strings long enough for those lowest notes! Usually somewhere in the octave below middle C, pianos switch over to plain wire. On a well-designed piano, the break should hardly be noticeable. Listen for it next time you're at a piano and see if you can tell where the break is! On this Kawai upright, the copper wound strings continue up three notes past the end of the bass bridge (the point where the angle of the strings changes). That helps make the transition even smoother. Notice also that when the switch to plain wire happens, there is a transition to three strings per note instead of two. ...
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