Remedial string leveling

[Andrew and Rebeca Anderson]

Ric, Barbara,
I was wondering about this too.  I routinely lift the strings with 
the strate-mate on both sides of the capo.  Gets rid of a lot of 
noise.  But pulling really hard seems to be more about noise than 
levelling.  If you are pulling hard, have you already lifted the 
strings and got some higher than others?

At some point, lifting/levelling at the capo is enough and the 
problem is about the condition of the termination.  Ie. getting under 
there with a dremel and stone, or a file (saintly patience required) 
and getting rid of cut-up material.

Is this what it is about?

I find that some agraffes on a popular make don't have holes all 
nicely lined up in a row.  Real nuisance for levelling to make a 
damper perform better.  In this case it is better to level and not 
indiscriminately lift.

Andrew


At 12:16 PM 10/19/2005, you wrote:
>Hi Barbara
>
>Takk for sist as they say over here !
>
>I read your post with interest and it seemed to me your greatest 
>concern was not getting enough leverage to pull / push up on the 
>strings.  If this is the case I would like to hear a discussion 
>about just how much force people are using to accomplish string 
>leveling.  I have always used minimal force in doing this job, not 
>wanting to over stress the brass holes in the agraffes, nor cause 
>any undo wear on the capo.  As such, I use Joe Gosses version of the 
>string leveling tool (making sure the piano is reasonably level to 
>begin with) and lift only what I absolutely have to on the first 
>pass.  I dont do broadband string lifting in the expectation of 
>getting rid of some string noises. Rather I wait to hear what I have 
>and if I need to minimize some string noise then I may try some 
>additional lifting for whatever unisons are affected.
>
>btw.. I mention the bit about getting the piano in level first 
>because I watched a fellow use this tool not so long ago and he had 
>gotten all done and started mating hammers to strings and noticed 
>that he had to individually file almost all his hammers so the left 
>side was higher then the other.  When I asked him whether he'd 
>leveled his piano first or not he seemed to think it was not 
>neccessary ... because the hammers would "of course be automatically 
>tilted with the piano"... grin.. I had to giggle a bit despite myself.
>Cheers
>RicB
>
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