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Piano wire is a specialized type of wire made for use in piano and other musical instrument strings, as well as many other purposes. It is made from tempered high-carbon steel, also known as "spring steel". Music wire is another name for piano wire: it is used for the cores of strings, which may be wound with other materials. Music wire for instruments other than pianos comes in smaller gauges, down to .007" (0.17 mm). Image File history File links Circle-contradict. ...
A wire is a single, usually cylindrical, elongated strand of drawn metal. ...
A grand piano, with the lid up. ...
The old steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon content between 0. ...
Manufacture and use
General purpose high-carbon steel drawn music wire (such as ASTM A228) is manufactured in both inch and metric gauges in diameters as small as 0.006 inches (0.15 mm) up to 0.192 inches (4.8 mm). A small number of companies produce the tough, high tensile strength polished wire intended for limited music instrument markets, which is manufactured from steel of a specific composition by cold drawing. Musical instrument strings are among the most demanding of all its applications. Placed under high tension, they are subject to repeated blows, are bent, stretched and slackened during tuning, and are still expected to last for decades. The wire must also be extremely consistent in size: variations greater than 0.0003 inches (0.0076 mm) can produce audible falseness in modern instruments. ASTM International is an international voluntary standards organization that develops and produces technical standards for materials, products, systems and services. ...
Mid-19th century tool for converting between different standards of the inch An inch is an Imperial and U.S. customary unit of length. ...
The International System of Units (symbol: SI) (for the French phrase Syst me International dUnit s) is the most widely used system of units. ...
Drawing is a manufacturing process for producing a wire, bar or tube by pulling on a material until it increases in length. ...
Music wire evolved from handmade ductile iron to continuously drawn carbon steel by the end of the nineteenth century, and the international competition for higher strength benefitted from demands of consistency from other special wire products like telegraph and barbed wire. Innovative piano makers kept pace with advances in this important auxiliary industry by increasing the size and tensions in their string scales.-1...
Carbon steel is a metal alloy, a combination of two elements, iron and carbon, where other elements are present in quantities too small to affect the properties. ...
Telegraphy (from the Greek words tele = far away and grapho = write) is the long distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters, originally over wire. ...
A selection of forms of barbed wire. ...
Music wire is sold by weight and packaged in tight coils. It springs back to a gentle curve but can be straightened using a series of opposed rollers. It requires careful handling for safety and appearance, since it can be marred by perspiration, and it requires special cutters, as the hardened steel will otherwise quickly dull the cutter. Sweating (also called perspiration or sometimes transpiration) is the loss of a watery fluid, consisting mainly of sodium chloride and urea in solution, that is secreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals. ...
Other applications Piano wire is also used in the fabrication of springs, fishing lures, special effects in the movie industry and for cutting soap. It is also commonly used in hobby applications such as model railroading. This article needs cleanup. ...
Piano wire in popular culture Piano wire sometimes appears in popular fiction as an instrument of murder, usually by strangulation. A particularly intriguing instance of this was the "Piano Wire Watch" worn by SPECTRE assassin Donald "Red" Grant in the James Bond film From Russia with Love. The watch had a hidden tab that could be pulled out, revealing a length of piano wire to be used as a garrote. SPECTREs leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is a fictional terrorist organisation featured in the British James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, and the films based on those novels. ...
Jack Ruby murdered the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in a very public manner. ...
Red Grant is a fictional character in the James Bond novel and film From Russia with Love. ...
The James Bond 007 gun logo James Bond 007 is a fictional British agent[1] created by writer Ian Fleming in 1952. ...
A 2002 Penguin Books paperback edition From Russia with Love, is the second James Bond film in the official EON Productions series, and the second to star Sean Connery as the suave and sophisticated British Secret Service agent James Bond. ...
A garrote (a Spanish word; alternative spellings include garotte and garrotte) is a handheld weapon, most often referring to a ligature of chain, rope, scarf, or wire used to strangle someone to death. ...
Piano wire was also used to hang some of those suspected of taking part in the July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.[citation needed] Claus von Stauffenberg The July 20 Plot was a failed coup détat and attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. ...
Hitler redirects here. ...
See also Piano acoustics is an exploration of how physical science, particularly acoustics, can help to explain a number of important properties of the piano. ...
External links Manufacturers of piano wire |