Piano wire

[Bedrock]

Having recently moved house, I discovered some piano wire I had acquired decades ago.

I did use some of it for micro chisels back then, and water hardened.

How does it compare with say silver steel in edge holding? Is water or oil better for hardening?

Mike

 

[D_W]

Piano and guitar strings are usually some kind of high carbon (at least the core, the windings on heavy string are something less hard) spring steel. They are a water hardening steel, but they're small enough that you should oil harden them first as they will probably cool fast enough oil and be less troublesome than water hardening.

Less carbon than silver steel, but not by much.

 

[bugbear]

http://www.pss-corp.com/blog/piano-wire ... d-springs/

Says that "high-carbon steel music wire (codified as ASTM A228)"

search again for ASTM A228, we find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_steel

0.7–1.0% C
0.2–0.6% Mn
0.1–0.3% Si

I suspect heat treatment would be far more influenced by the small size of the wire,
and hence very rapid air cooling, than by its composition.

BugBear

 

[Cheshirechappie]

All the piano wire I've ever used was supplied in a hard condition. I suspect that hardness was the result of the drawing operation to size the wire, rather than a heat treatment, so hardness may not be absolutely consistent through the thickness of the wire. However - hard it is, so in the first instance it may be worth shaping it and using it without further heat treatment.