There is a point in every piano technician's career when a string breaks unexpectedly, usually because the piano hasn't been tuned in a while. Since strings breaking is not the technician's fault (how could he or she be responsible for the out-of-tune state of your piano?), the client is generally obligated to pay for the repair, just like any other maintenance. When a string breaks, there are a few options for repair: a replacement string may be ordered or taken from a donor piano, or, if the technician is lucky, it can be spliced.
I recently got the opportunity to splice a string for one of my good friends from church, which was the first time I got to try it out. It seems complicated, but there are really only three things to worry about:
If I mess up the knot, then I won't be able to use the original string any longer and will have to order a new one.
If I mess up the coil, then I have to create a new splice.
If I mess up the splice, and the string breaks again when I tune it back to pitch, then I will have to order a new string. There is only one chance at making a correct splice.
The splice itself is quite simple; reading from a textbook all about piano repair, I followed the steps to create a "tuner's knot", which essentially creates two loops on the ends of the broken string and a donor string. Then, I pulled them together and put the string back in the piano, using the newly added length to create a becket, or coil, around the tuning pin. After that it was just a matter of pulling the string up to pitch. It was perfect! I appreciated the practice and the whole experience of getting to help with her piano, and she's very happy that her piano is now in-tune again after not being tuned in ten years, with all her strings intact.
From left to right, you can see the broken string and how much length I had to work with for the splice, the space for the missing string in the piano, the tuner's knot, and the newly spliced string in the piano. The string is in tune and sounds exactly the same as before! The only thing I would've done differently is clip the leftover string on the knot after I had gotten it almost tight; now it's too tight to get a wire cutter in there to chop off the length of string that sticks out into the other pin, but it works just fine regardless.
There are always new things to learn about in the piano world, and I love getting to see them each day as I meet my clients and help their pianos feel and sound amazing again!
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