On Apr 18, 2007, at 8:36 PM, Ron Nossaman wrote: >> Yep, I agree. Sharpness of profile plus angle of deflection. I >> don’t think hardness enters into it, unless somebody can show me >> how. I don’t see how softer metal would make a sharp profile with >> a high angle less apt to string breakage. Maybe it does, but I >> don’t understand how. >> Regards, >> Fred Sturm >> University of New Mexico > > How about the unlikelihood of a soft capo maintaining the sharp > profile, where a hard one would? The hard capo would retain the > high breakage profile, while the softer one would blunt into a > safer contour. > > Ron N Yep, that's my take: I think this is why the notion that hardening caused string breakage got started. People sharpening capos, finding they didn't retain the profile, so then they hardened their sharpened capos. The hardened sharp capos experienced somewhat more string breakage. Blame the hardening, not the fact that the sharpness of the bearing point was more durable. The sharpness caused the extra breakage, and in the sharpened, soft capos, the grooving/blunting made the sharpness somewhat less, hence somewhat less string breakage. Makes sense to me. The notion that the hardness itself causes breakage makes no sense at all to me. So if you want to sharpen capos, it would make sense to me to do a contour a little less sharp, and harden that, rather than do a knife's edge and leave it soft. Or just as sharp, hardened, and less angle of deflection. But to each his own. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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