Greetings,
Inre pressing the string toward the bridge pin with the tip of the tuning hammer, Paul wrote:
>>I do exactly the same thing but with a piece of maple dowel with a piece of leather around the tip. No steel on steel. There is always a pitch drop, although I've not measured it as accurately as you.
I use the tip because it is right there in my hand. The steel on steel isn't a problem with this light of a press.
>>I agree with everything you say here except the use of the word "disappear". Perhaps "recede" and it is not permanent (for many of the reasons that David and Ron have already discussed--pace Ron). It has been my many experiences of return to the same piano only to find the false/real beats having returned (precessed? if it was a recession at the outset).
I find it is often permanent: school pianos that I see a lot of, and keep record of with a touch of chalk on the bridge pins where I did this, stay settled in. Not always, but there have been numerous problem notes that never returned.
I surmise that there is a better tone coming out of a string when the restorative force of the curve is removed.
>>Interesting and probable, but undemonstrated except by way of the recent experimentation by Ellis and others on false/real beats as a result of string curvature.
It is easily demonstrated. I can visually discern a straighter string leaving the bridge if the light is right, and if you press on one wire and not its return mate, then take the wire off and look at the bends left where the pins were contacted, you will see that the string you pressed has a much more definite bend.(try it, you should see the same thing I did).
As I understood the Ellis experiments, they were tracking the orientation of the natural curvature of the wire resulting from the roll, not the distortion of the wire by termination bends. I'll re read it, just to be sure.
>>Another problem is the internal shape of the agraffe which is not radial but flattened in the center between the countersinks. The wire never entirely seats itself on the shape, leaving two points of contact inside the agraffe. I've experienced both more and less transient noise from pulling the string up at the agraffe. I've never experienced the same issue at the capo, particularly after dressing it properly. There is, of course, a solution to the agraffe, but that's another hobby horse.
The solution I have found with much agraffe noise is to strike the string, downward, with a blunt screwdriver, directly proximal of the agraffe, as close to the agraffe as possible. I hit it firmly with my hand on the top of a large handled screwdriver. I think this allows a little "hammering" of the string back into the agraffe, seating the string. I wear eye protection doing this, but have only had one string break in 30 years.
Regards,
Ed Foote RPT
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