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Piano wire

Piano wire

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A wire is a single, usually cylindrical, flexible strand or rod of metal. Wires are used to bear mechanical loads and to carry electricity and telecommunications signals. Wire is commonly formed by drawing the metal through a hole in a die or draw plate. Standard sizes are determined by various...

 made for use in piano

Tempering is a heat treatment technique for metals, alloys and glass. In steels, tempering is done to "toughen" the metal by transforming brittle martensite or bainite into a combination of ferrite and cementite or sometimes Tempered martensite...

 high-carbon steel

, also known as spring steel
Spring steel
Spring steel is a low alloy, medium carbon steel or high carbon steel with a very high yield strength. This allows objects made of spring steel to return to their original shape despite significant bending or twisting.-Grades:...


Manufacture and use

General-purpose, high-carbon steel, drawn music wire (such as ASTM A228) is manufactured in both inch and metric
Metric system

 music wire gauges (m.w.g.) in diameters as small as 0.006 inch up to 0.192 inch (0.15 to 4.8 mm). A small number of companies produce the tough, high tensile polished wire intended for limited music instrument markets, which is manufactured from steel of a specific composition by cold drawing
Drawing (manufacturing)
Drawing is a metalworking process which uses tensile forces to stretch metal. It is broken up into two types: sheet metal drawing and wire, bar, and tube drawing. The specific definition for sheet metal drawing is that it involves plastic deformation over a curved axis...


Piano strings are among the most demanding of all applications of steel. Placed under high tension, they are subject to repeated blows, they are stretched and slackened during tuning and are still expected to last for decades. Similar challenges arise in plucked instruments, along with the additional demand of being bent when plucked.

Piano wire must also be extremely consistent in size: variations greater than 0.0003 inch (8 μm) will produce audible falseness in modern instruments.

Piano 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.

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 and both control line
Control line

 and radio-controlled aircraft
Radio-controlled aircraft
A radio-controlled aircraft is controlled remotely by a hand-held transmitter and a receiver within the craft...



The oldest record of wire being made for musical instruments is from Augsburg

 in 1351; this probably predates the harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

 and may have been wire for a psaltery
A psaltery is a stringed musical instrument of the harp or the zither family. The psaltery of Ancient Greece dates from at least 2800 BC, when it was a harp-like instrument...

. Earlier wire, used in harpsichords, was of brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...

 or iron


Starting around 1800, the piano began to be built ever more ambitiously, with sturdier (eventually, iron) framing and greater string tension. This led to innovations in making tougher piano wire. In 1834, the Webster & Horsfal firm of Birmingham

 brought out a form of piano wire made from cast steel; according to Dolge it was "so superior to the iron wire that the English firm soon had a monopoly." But a better steel wire was soon created in 1840 by the Viennese


The technological developments also benefited from demands of consistency from other special wire products like telegraph and barbed wire
Barbed wire
Barbed wire, also known as barb wire , is a type of fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strand. It is used to construct inexpensive fences and is used atop walls surrounding secured property...

. Innovative piano makers kept pace with these advances by augmenting metal framing in their instruments and increasing tension of their strings.

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