Bridge Seating (was Re: Where to notch a bridge,& rel ative effects ????? (Advice sought)

[Ric Brekne]

Hi Andrew

Comments interspersed below

    David,
    If a string is up (I've seen them on brand new pianos just out of the
    case) it doesn't take but a gentle push to put them down.  Tapping or
    firmly pushing runs the risk of deforming the notch and introducing
    falseness.  I inherited responsibility for an S&S D where someone did
    this to the point where the beating was obnoxious (savage
    string-seating I called it).  I couldn't stop the beating until the
    notch was fixed (with ultra thick CA for now, it set up hard and
    without my notes I can't find it on the piano).

Boy do I hear you on this one !  We have a 4 year old D out here that 
someone really subjected to the treatment. I took some pictures last 
year and posted them to the list.  The poor thing has actually beautiful 
tone but there are many notes in the treble that are poorly defined.  It 
will be difficult to get the owners to go along with a downstringing and 
bridge repair job.  This is the instrument that has had the buzzing 
cross strut. Took me 3 years to finally get permission to supersede 
official party line on this (which was that the <<bell>> screw wasnt 
tight enough) and fix it.  Someone tho has really buried those strings 
deep.  You can see the wood spreading out and around the sides... like 
theyve been mushed in.  Tragic.


    Now I do take a notched brass dowel and gently push strings down
    while tightening their curve off of the bridge pin.  This can help
    with stability and tone.  The maple bridge capping is vulnerable to
    damage especially when the strings have a small diameter and that is
    where we run into more problems with "falseness."

I'm even more cautious myself. I use a hammer shank and my dinky round 
nose pliers to tap  it.  Shank on the string behind the bridge pin over 
the bridge surface. I never go out onto the speaking length and I dont 
try any bends around the pin. Seems to me any such bend is bound to be 
moved the first time you tune... and then what ?


    After the previous round on this discussion (last year I think) I've
    been on the outlook for strings with a measurable gap above the
    bridge.  I still haven't found any except on some cheaper pianos just
    coming out of the box.  I think Ric's article in the journal does
    cover this issue rather well.

Me too.  For the most part I dont find the symptom.  And the only times 
it does pop up is because of some over eager tech like the one who got 
loose on the D I mentioned above.  I never see this happen naturally..  
but I find unseated strings quite frequently. 

If there is any absolute truth in this world... its that there are no 
absolute truths (with this one exception).  I think the bottom line is 
that moderation and a bit of thought given to the issue is what is needed.


    YMMV,
    Andrew Anderson


Cheers, and I'm glad you found the article useful
RicB