Hi Peter,

I think that the piano-man may fall short, as the strings on most pianos are too thick for H-Ds. My experience with brass strings has been quite brief, as they all broke while I was installing them... Keep em real loose...

'Zither wire' is what I have had the best luck with, when calling around...

Phospho-Bronze has great tone, but you have to hear it for a long long time... which is great... most of the time...

Also, two guitar strings can be threaded together by pulling one through the other's brass eyelet, though I doubt whether you'll get eight feet out of them...