[CAUT] Thank you for Stability advice

[Ed Foote]

 Fred writes;


  BTW, I wonder if making positive bends on both sides of the bridge might reduce the tendency of string to pass back and forth over the bridge. Perhaps a little.

 

            Well, the more positive the bend, the more surface area contact exists between the pin and string, and without as much curvature to help, there should be more resistance to moving. i.e. having to create a new "bend" as the old bend is being pulled past the pin. 
    When I lift the hammer off the pin and reach back to the bridge, I automatically give a light press sideways behind the bridge first.  I have often heard  the click of the string moving through the pins and dropping pitch by 10 cents, even on old pianos.  Many "well settled" bass strings will do this if a slight tug sideways is applied with a stringing hook. I do the back first so the front bend will have a better chance of being nearer its final position
     Now for something a little more radical:  
       There is another side to both of the bends, between the pin. There is  the same restorative force in the wire as it lies on top of the bridge as there was in our recently fore and aft bends.   This, I don't think, has major tonal implications, but for settling strings, there is usually about 10-15 cents worth of drop in those bends. I have bumped the wire between the bridge pins to relieve  them (with a blunt screwdriver)  and it makes a difference, but I never figured out a tool that would do it without marking up the bridge, so I don't do that.  Anyway, there is about 200 cents of slack to be found in a freshly wound coil, (at pitch), so I let those two bends fend for themselves. 
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html

(and as an aside to Ron;  the angle of the tuning tip is low enough to create the same results that are had with a stringing hook pulling almost parallel with the string plane, so I don't register the vector as going into the bridge.  Even so, the force needed to dent a bridge is more than I find necessary to straighten the bend.  I can apply enough force with the hammer held at arm's length in an arthritic wrist without getting off the bench, so it ain't a lot of force we are talking about, more than it takes for repetition springs, but far less than it takes to space a wire under the capo.)

 
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