piano wire

[manll-j]

Hello, Iam new to the forum and have found quite a few messages of interest.There have been a few about strings,so here is a little information that I have had with me for about forty years.At that time I bought an early nineteenth century grand,but as it was ravaged by moth Iset about repairing it,including the replacing of strings which were very rusty.
I was concerned that modern piano wire might be quite different to that of C1820 vintage,but an aquaintance offered to have the old and new wireanalyzed in a machine he had access to.I think it was a 'mass spectograph'.The two samples were almost identical,apart from a few trace elements,and was quite ordinary high carbon steel of .9% carbon.There was little point in trying any tensile test between them because of the obvious deterioration of the old wire.
Although the metal was the same there may be other factors in the final strength such as heat treatment or manner of working.