[CAUT] Hardness of termination vs string breakage (was Re: restrung D)

[Ted Sambell]

I think Fred has it right. In fact I did dress the capo bars to a V as 
described by Ric, so we are probably not that far apart. I will try to 
obtain Ed McMurrow's book; actually I read it many years ago but cannot 
recall specific details. It is not in the Schaff catalogue, and deserves to 
be at least as much as many of the titles there. I do remember that some of 
his ideas were controversial and perhaps unproven. Innovation is not 
necessarily synomynous with substance, but should certainly be encouraged 
anyway, as the innovator is more likely to produce some enduring work.

Ted Sambell
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alan McCoy" <amccoy at mail.ewu.edu>
To: <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 9:48 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Hardness of termination vs string breakage (was Re: 
restrung D)


> Well said Fred. Hence my question as to radius.
>
> Alan
>
>
>> From: Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu>
>> Reply-To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" 
>> <caut at ptg.org>
>> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:26:13 -0600
>> To: caut <caut at ptg.org>
>> Subject: Re: [CAUT] Hardness of termination vs string breakage (was Re:
>> restrung D)
>>
>> On 4/24/07 1:55 PM, "Jim Busby" <jim_busby at byu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> I think Fred addressed capo dressing a few years back in his very
>>> thorough manner. As I remember here is the gist of it; the v bar can't
>>> be too sharp because it will wear/fracture too fast and soon be rounded
>>> anyway, but now with string grooves. He also referred to a .5mm contact
>>> point and that stuck with me.
>> Hi Jim,
>>     Not me. I have never come to any firm opinion about the best shape 
>> for a
>> capo. I do think it stands to reason that "too sharp" (wherever you draw
>> that line) is a bad idea, especially if it is "too soft." Seems to me if 
>> you
>> want a very sharp termination you should harden it (and then you might 
>> want
>> to worry about angle of deflection, and about just how much you work the
>> wire when leveling strings). But that's about as far as I go, besides the
>> obvious: clean and polished and lubed with something or other <G>.
>>     About what the profile should be, I think people do a lot of talking 
>> at
>> cross purposes. Similar to talking about how close you do letoff. It 
>> depends
>> a lot on whose eye is estimating, and how you are measuring. Same thing 
>> with
>> a capo. Radius, diameter, amount of surface contact, curvature, type of
>> curvature (eg, curvature in the back and sharp at the front), lots of
>> different ways of describing, and not much consistency from one person to
>> another. Unless somebody has an actual template, it's hard to compare 
>> what
>> different people are talking about.
>> Regards,
>> Fred Sturm
>> University of New Mexico
>>
>>