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I LOVE it!

(And don't let it get to your head, BDB...)

Yes, the only dancing that occurs is up on the stage, and on the lids of the pianos. Everyone in the audience is there to eat, drink, and watch the spectacle.

I. Did the design is well known . I like the hook, the best, and pliers aallow to match the original one better. But indeed it is a good simple gig, does not avoid the necessity to learn to make things in different ways. To me the less tools the best i feel.

It is easy with a hook and the winding is tight, the round pliers allow for different diameters, indeed for thick wire it is hard but for the ones that break it is ok.

That said, and due how the pianist play in that club, strings should not break so often. To me they dont brutalize the pianos it is only show, they are pro piaists ( some should refrain singing when they are drunk !! )

Now it is certainly late fot the wire,but i suggest that if the piano provide more dynamics, the pianist will play less hard. The unison also can help.

Those pianos are miked. A llttle maintenance. Would protec strings.

I haqd 28 pianos for 4 years in a 2500 students music school.with One sttriing break only .

Nice gig! Looks like everyone is having a blast!

I think there are some worthwhile distinctions between these pianos and your music school pianos. First, these pianos are a little over ten years old, and they've been play almost every day of those ten years, 5-6 hours a day. As such, my opinion is that the strings are in the advanced stages of metal fatigue. Second, the players are gorillas, unlike your music school students. Even the one classically-trained pianist has to bandage his fingers from pounding. Keep in mind, these players also DRINK on the job, and sometimes they get pretty hammered, which also doesn't add any finesse to their technique.

What kind of maintenance do you suggest to protect the strings? Both pianos were fully regulated a little over a year ago, and there was never a drop in string breakage. The closest thing to a pattern of string breakage seems to correspond *slightly* with who's playing that week. I.e., if a certain player goes on vacation, I may experience less breakage. The prevalent attitude in the club is that breaking strings just goes with the territory.

They do indeed have a blast. It's a great atmosphere.

Ah, but they do brutalize the pianos -they make a point of it, for show. It drives the crowd wild when the four 200lb pianists climb up on the pianos, jump up and down on the lids, and beat the edge of the lids with drumsticks. they slam the fallboards up to induce the crowd to clap along with a song. Several times each night, some employees will climb on and dance on the lids, as in the photo in the original post.

The downstage edge of both lids is covered with black duct tape to hide the chewed-up edge from beating on them with drumsticks over the years.

If they make enough money from the pianos to replace them when they need to, the pianos have done their job, which is, after all, to entertain people.

I hope they reinforce the lids for that sort of use, especially if they are particle board. If they break with someone on them, it could cause injury.

Yep. These pianos are used as tools in the business. Like any other often used tool, they will be used up prematurely.

I would agree with the safety issue. Big liability if someone goes through and then through the sounding board…..

Especially if someone gets sliced up like with a cheese cutter!

The only option would seem to be living with it...given the extreme use these pianos are getting.

But...if there is a rebuilder in the area who specializes in rescaling, you might try lowering the tension on the instruments, and get away from the breaking strain on the strings a bit.

I had an extreme breakage problem with one artist, all bass strings, and discussed this with JDGrandt in Canada. They suggested a rescaled bass. They moved the tension down, and the diameter of the core wire up, with a lighter wrap. No more broken strings.

A similiar approach to the plain wire might help. There is a balance between weight/size/tension in every scale, but maybe you can reduce your breakage by rescaling the pianos.

Worth a thought, anyhoo!

Now THAT might really break some strings!

Contrary to popular opinion, reducing tension -- if done by reducing the wire size-- will not reduce the % breaking point of the string. In other words if a #22 string is at 75% breaking point, then changing it to a #18 string will result in no change in the breaking point, although there will be less tension on the system and the soundboard may be freer to vibrate (or may not, depending). You can only reduce breaking percentage for a given note by changing the speaking length.

I dont agree, it reduce, not in a very significant way (about 1 to 3%) also the tensile strenght of thinner wire is higher (due to more annealing ?) .
Why would thinner wire tend to break more ? may be only because the pianist would play stronger to have more tone probably (while the thinner wire gives less)

I agree that some of the pianists may be hard on the pianos, and try to break strings, but not all, then if the hammers are accepting hard impacts and the tone is thickened, strings are less prone to break.
As the pianos are miked it is always possible to push the top of the spectra.

Indeed not the same than a music school ! (but dancing on the lids does not break strings usually !)

In Jazz clubs here some tuners keep the pianos in shape well, others tend to break strings, the musicians are the same in all clubs, so this may be related to the way the piano is maintained in shape. (also the design of the piano will be helping or working against you)

Under section 3 on size strength.

Maximum Tensile Strength

Merci ! that is interesting..

If you look at the second photo in the OP, there are 1X4's screwed into the underside of each lid. Even so, the lids(laminated, not particle board) nevertheless flex so much the lid hinge screw holes get hogged out on a regular basis. In less than two years, I've shimmed those holes three times.

What surprises me is that the legs haven't blown out from under them.

The legs are strong enough, as long as they are on tight.