[CAUT] When to restring...

[tannertuner]

My line of thinking is that as the string is pulled to tension, then subsequently slid back and forth with changes in humidity and tuning motion, it will before the piano can be delivered create the same wire burnished chamfer (is that the word I'm looking for?) into the brass, whether it has been polished or not. In other words, the other 357 degrees of the hole will remain either beautifully dressed or not, but the 1mm of agraffe hole that the string rides in will be the same either way. Since manufacturers don't see the cost benefit of bothering with the process, and the newly produced instruments are regarded by artists as as good as exist anywhere, it just seems to be a process that falls into the diminishing rate of returns category. Further, I can't imagine we ever dress capos to that level of perfection (being cast iron rather than brass), and they would seem more important than the agraffe. But that's my perception. Not that it isn't
 a good idea that really looks professional when done.  We've debated this before. I have to say, even of the crappiest agraffes I've pulled out of pianos, tone wasn't necessarily a problem where you could say, "this one sounds like a bad agraffe."
Jeff

--- On Thu, 8/5/10, PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com <PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com> wrote:


From: PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com <PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [CAUT] When to restring...
To: caut at ptg.org
Date: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 5:57 PM



 
 
In a message dated 8/5/2010 4:24:31 P.M. Central Daylight Time, tannertuner at bellsouth.net writes:
Don't we all pretty much agree that the extra polishing to the agraffe is rendered null as soon as the new wire is pulled to tension with the wire serving as a burnisher of sorts and distorting the new beautiful work just performed?
As much as we all agree that, as soon as a wire is rendered under tension under the capo that the "perfect" contour erodes. So why bother at all, Jeff? My answer is, and always has been, that if we don't start from as close to a perfect condition, knowing that it will degrade, how will we know how it might sound. I don't for a moment think you are arguing lack of quality, but we spend inordinate amounts of time on bridges, and tuning temperaments, knowing that they'll degrade almost as, and as soon as, we finish them. 
 
Paul
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