tapping strings

[Ron Nossaman]

>Ok... I have always understood you to mean that the string really isnt being 
>pushed
>up the pin at all. Fair enough.

Never, quite the opposite. I posted a message just yesterday, responding to
you, giving you psi load figures on static load vs loads resulting from the
bridge pushing a string up a pin. The post with which I responded to Ron T,
your exception to which prompted yesterday's, again clearly stated that
strings are pushed up bridge pins by the expanding bridge. What I've said
is that it doesn't stay up the pin without contact with the bridge cap.  


>Now that I am past that I still end up with the position that as long as the 
>lowest
>part of the indentation is above the string line, taken as the angle created 
>by the
>difference of the height of the  center of the bridge visa vi the front 
>termination
>point, then any seating that can be accomplished is and should be advisable.

I must not have explained this very well last time, so I'll try again. The
string line isn't from the agraffe to the center of the bridge. It is from
the agraffe to the highest point (first contact point) on the bridge cap.
In a well set up new bridge, that will be the notch edge. After that edge
is crushed enough by bridge movement with seasonal changes (and/or
unnatural abuse), that high point will be back on the bridge cap away from
the notch edge. The termination on the bridge top will no longer coincide
with the pin, and if the pin is even a little bit loose, false beats will
result. Seating the string at the pin just temporarily springs the string
down to seat on the bridge at the pin. The string will soon be back where
it was, and nothing will have been gained by seating the string.    


>As far as the distinctive kind of false beating loose pins cause we have 
>been in
>agreement all along, but that is only one kind of falsness.

I am well aware of this, and as I have said: I am talking about the usual
run-of-the-mill loose bridge pin caused false beats that almost universally
prompt tuners to get out their string seating tools and seat strings. I
have never said, and never will say that what I am discussing here is the
cause of all conceivable sound anomalies we have ever, or will ever come
across in pianos. I am, once again, talking about those ubiquitous false
beats that, when a screwdriver tip is placed against the side of the pin -
clear up until the screwdriver is removed. 

Ron N