[CAUT] Advice for achieving stability sooner?

[Jim Busby]

Ron,

Gently "pushing" the wire as close to the string plane and about 1/2 inch from the bridge is still good isn't it?? (Just to take the rounded nonsense out of the bend at the bridge pin.) Or are you saying that even this is unnecessary? My standard procedure for years has been to level coils, seat strings at the hitch, etc. then tune it 15 cents high, and then lift at the agraffe/vbar and make the slight push at (1/2 inch from and NOT down) the speaking bridge pin. At this point the pitch is nearly back to zero and fine tuning is stable, the bridge remains unhurt, but the bend is straighter rather than rounded. Que no? 

I've fixed enough damage to bridges to know tapping them is bad, but maybe we shouldn't call it "seating" or "tapping" but say straightening the wire at the bridge pin, or something like that? I'm just askin'. Been wrong many times.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 9:30 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Advice for achieving stability sooner?

Diane Hofstetter wrote:

> I'm considering doing less careful pitch raises, but doing
> two of them before I try to tune.  Have also wondered about
> tapping strings on bridges.

Please don't seat the strings on the bridges. It won't help a 
thing, and will likely cause damage. What's needed here is 
reality, not magic. The pianos are just at least four tunings 
behind the curve (environmental factors notwithstanding) for 
new instruments. Haul them all up to pitch, overshoot as 
necessary, leaving them even a bit sharp. Give it a couple of 
days, then start tuning. Tune them again in April (they'll 
need it, this is catch-up), and go from there to a typical 
twice a year tuning at the worst possible time in the seasonal 
cycles. By the time another year passes, they shouldn't be 
significantly worse than anything else in the system.

Ron N