Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Excessive bass string breakage on a Hyundai studio

Worked on a Hyundai studio piano today. The piano doesn't seem that old, maybe less than 10 years or so. The Pierce Piano Atlas lists the company, but no serial numbers. I have never worked on a Hyundai before, and have never even seen one here in my area. The piano is located at a local elementary school. The school recently switched over to using me for all of their pianos. When I came to this piano, I found that three bass strings were broken. I found them in the bottom of the piano and had them sent off for duplicates. I put in the three new strings tonight. The whole piano was on average about 20 cents flat. The treble tuned up nicely and had a great sound. Then I started tuning the bass, six more strings broke. They broke off at the tuning pin. What's going on here? Has anyone else had this problem?

Wow. Check the angle at which the wire leaves the pin and goes up over the bar. Older Acrosonics had similar problems with bass strings because the angle was too great, causing the wire to bind against it self (similar to a coil overlapping itself, but not quite. Still, the wire is binding against something equally hard (itself), and would snap right at the pin. 6 strings though, that's rough.

Lower the pitch slightly first before pulling, and hope for the best. As far as I know, Hyundai, as a name brand has not built a piano in over 10 years, probably more.

I'd tell them it needs a new set of bass strings. You don't want to be chasing this problem for years down the road - fix it now and have it done with.

Exactly the same happened to me with a Hyundai too. Unfortunately I forgot the model name, but it was a small one. On the other hand I tuned some bigger Hyundais which were at least decent and nice sounding. They were made by Samick, btw.

The problem is indeed the too great angle of the wire leaving the pin. A new set of strings will help only the next few years. It is no option just to leave the broken strings away, because the damper won´t work with only one string.

Gregor

What I did with the Acrosonics that had the problem is, I restrung with new pins and strings, and left the coils slightly up a bit farther from the plate, so the angle of the wire leaving the pin was more normalized. Some of these were done over 20 years ago and haven't had any breakage since.

Have you measured the tension of the strings?

No idea on that precise piano, but Bass strings can be really highly tense, too much sometime, too thick strings, it may happen on some good pianos and make the strings fragile. Nudging while tuning may break them easily, also banging hard on the piano.

The bass string winder send me lower tension strings (thinner) in that case unless I ask him to keep the original size.

Steel wire quality also may vary.

Dear Ryan,

I have also encountered newish pianos where the strings break at the tuning pins. It has always been an issue with the tuning pins being driven too deeply; the string binds on the coil to the point that it attempts to crossover and leave the pin way too high. In a 'normal' piano the string leaves at the bottom of the pin and coil, around 7:00 or so, but when the pin is too deep the string starts climbing the coil and trying to leave at 10-11;00...and the string bends and breaks. You can visually see that the angle is not going to work, and the strings are liable to break.

You can raise the pins!

Back off the tuning pin enough to get the string-becket clear, and push the string coil down. Raise the tuning pin 1-1/2 to 2 turns, lift the wire-coil back into place, replace the becket, and re-tune the piano. Your piano sounds young enough that the wire should handle the process. You don't have to remove the wire from the pin, just push the coil down after getting the becket-bend clear; this means you don't have to re-twist or re-install the wires. The process is fairly quick and easy.

But, if too many strings have broken, you won't get a smooth sounding bass from all that mis-matched wire...and re-stringing will be the best option. It will be your call, sir. Advise the customer as to the options, and determine what will serve best.

If you do re-string; pay attention to the depth of the current pins, and make sure you don't repeat the error by the factory! You may need to drive the pins a tick less deep than you usually do. I attach a rubber mute to my pin-driver, with tape, to set my pins to an even height...this lets me make sure that all are even, and it is easily adjustable for varying conditions. Just a thought, sir!

Yr. mileage may vary.
Respectfully,
I remain,

Breaking strings is a big problem with Yamaha P22s. The string angle on the top two single bass strings is way to sharp. I have replaced a number of these single strings and everyone had broke at the pin. A RPT give me a solution to the problem if the string is not broken, add a drop of ProTec to the coil and this will help the string slide under the coil and not ride up on the coil. DO NOT OVER DO IT. A drop is all you need.

A few years ago I talked to Yamaha tech services and they admitted that this was a problem. Why they never corrected this in production I do not understand. They recommend that when you replace one of these broken bass strings turn out the pin two full turns before you begin replacing the new string. Yamaha uses to send you a free string, not any longer.

Good suggestion Jeff! Raising pins is not too bad of a job - although I've only done it on string repairs where I didn't back the pin off enough initially and ended up with too steep of an angle. What you describe does work. It certainly would be cheaper than replacing the whole set.

I don't know the type of pin block in Hyundai but, having the pin protruding more than normal would prompt me to install a longer pin for safety when restringing.

Dear Ryan(s),

OK, OK....since someone else has raised the piano brand, I'll admit that my solution was based on personal experience with breaking strings on a set of Yamaha P22s in college practice rooms and classrooms. I would not say that there IS a problem with P22 breaking strings; I'd say there WAS a problem with P22's breaking strings.

After documenting and dealing with several pianos through Yamaha, and outstanding support, I know that my pictures went to the factory and changed things on the floor there. By golly.

Dave Durben and Yamaha were excellent. Top notch support and no problem with the warranty stuff on that.

Send me an eMail, anyone interested, and I'll send my 'fix-it' as posted to Yamaha and Dave. Send to; TunerJeff@aol.com

Ryan H.; I have the post ready for you, but no eMail address!
Ryan S.; You wanna copy?

Sipping the good stuff,
I am,

Hi Jeff,

You can email me at ryanhassell@hotmail.com

Thanks!

I have noticed coils with a too steeper angle on some pianos, most often because someone tapped them. (never experiences so much breaking)

Sure that if the string want to ride the coil, I don't allow it to do so, I also tune smoothly those kind of pianos.

It may add quite a bit of effort on the wire indeed.

We don't have any P22 here, so I cannot say for this model (unless it is the P series that where produced in England, with different references).

tuning with the string riding the coils is impossible, so I have backed up some in that case.

Those pianos make me change my way of manipulating the tuning lever, a slower move let you know if something is going to break.

Thanks Jeff! Send it to me - I'd like to see what you came up with. Way to go being a team player with Yamaha! Instead of just criticizing you helped come up with a solution that will benefit many owners and technicians.

If strings are breaking at the tuning pin, chances are that the string is coming off the coil and curving over the lowest loops of the coil. This puts excess strain on the wire at that point. Sometimes just straightening out the coil will help, or you may need to remove the coil and unwind the pin a half-turn or two.

A steeper angle on the tuning pin would mitigate the problem, but that has to be done at the factory.

I'd like to add a slightly different aspect to this discussion. My Ibach upright has (ex-factory, as do several German pianos) hex-core bass strings. These tend to eat into the relatively soft termination pins on the plate nut (V-bar). This can cause excessive friction on the pin, i.e. excessive tension in the top-most string segment, and in one case, lead to a string breaking at the tuning pin - because that's where the string was already weakest.

I was just wondering whether Ryan H.'s Hyundai might have a similar issue.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I think I'm going to try Jeff's suggestion of backing out the pins a turn or so and see if that helps.

Mark, thanks for your idea, but these are not hex core strings.

The superintendent is a pianist too (has a son who is a piano performance major in college) and has approved me ordering the replacements for the ones that have broken. Other than this problem, it seems like a decent piano.

Update...

I finally got back to this piano recently. I did what Jeff suggested. I released the tension on the bass strings about one turn, removed the becket from the pin, loosened the pin about two more turns, reinstalled the string and tuned. IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM!!! It ended up raising up each pin by about 1/4" which was just enough to fix the problem.

However the funny part was when the custodian came by and said, "I don't know why they have you working on that piano, they never use it." LOL!