Wonderful to see so many responses in the field of piano wire and sustain
pedal and sound of pianos.

One more comment from me:  In South Africa, we have tons of old pianos
from before the First War to 1960.  We have more German pianos than
American pianos, and it is a common fact here that the bass strings of
American pianos need re-stringing but the German ones do not.

We attribute this mainly to the fact that the American strings used steel
and not copper for the first layer of the 2-layer bass strings.  Somehow
this rusts severely, creating a dull and tinny sound.

All the German pianos, without exception, use copper for both layers of
the bass string.  I have tried spinning one or two new strings for some
old German grand pianos, but this did not give it a more brilliant sound
than the original strings had on the other tones.  On one piano, no one
listening could hear the difference between one new bass string compared
to the original ones which were washed in a solvent.

As to someone cleaning rust of piano wire, I have tried this as well and
I found that the thickness of the wire changes irregularly if one sands
it down and polishes it again.  This does definitely change the sound.
Also, German wire was not necessarily good, especially if made after some
war, because of the shortage of materials.

A last personal comment from me is that I have not heard any piano with
as pleasant a sound as the pre-war pianos.  I firmly believe that all
pianos made after the wars are inferior, sound-wise.  Re-strung or not,
they all sound 'shrill' and 'glassy' to me.

Regards,

Bernt W. Damm