Bass bridge bearing question

[Ron Nossaman]

>The tension is down because I wanted to see how much the sound board came
>up.   It didn't do much.   Like 1 mm or less.  Checking again 3 months later
>I still have the same readings.

Sounds reasonable to me. Like I said, just curious.


>    Also I have heard favorable ideas for releasing the tension and letting
>the sound board "breathe".  I don't know one way or the other.  Could be
>like letting wine breath in a caraffe. How do you really tell?  If it is
>really better?  I do know it ain't too stable (in tuning) for the first two
>months. Since I haven't heard astounding differences from letting the
>tension down,  this alone is making me suspect an exerise in futility.

I agree with the "futility" part. A couple of months of resting, doesn't
seem to do much healing up of the cumulative damage from all those years
under load. I suspect that anyone that can come up with anything that
actually restores old soundboards will be rich by Tuesday. That is, if he
isn't burned for witchcraft by Monday night.


>    With the bass strings "off" I can now take measurements and compute
>tension. But what a hassel taking measurements. No wonder Travis didn't do
>that.   Maybe I will do a rubbing.   At any rate I will put it into a spread
>sheet and offer it to anyone interested.    ---ric

Yea, it is a hassle, but at least the bass isn't ultra critical of a
millimeter here or there in the lengths. You might post the spreadsheet
file on Michel's xdrive.

Ron N