Don't know if you are asking me this question but yes, they tend to remain aligned. My preferred position is 3 coils so that the becket aligns with the point at which the strings leaves the tuning pin. Do I care if it's not exactly there, no. I do my best to get them aligned on the same side. If one is off slightly I don't redo it. Often it's easy to miscalculate the lengthening of the singles as the coils at the hitch tighten and they sometimes will get a bit more than three. I think this is picking the proverbial nit here. I make an effort to get them aligned and mostly they end up aligned. A couple of them may not for whatever reason. I don't worry about it. Since I use the same measuring device for the pianos I string, the beckets and number of coils tends to be always the same. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of David Skolnik Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 8:14 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: [pianotech] Becket Alignment - sub-topic of Tuning pin height Just for my own aligntenment, is it assumed that beckets, acceptably aligned in initial installation, will remain so through subsequent chipping and tunings? What would represent an acceptable range of degree variation for those who profess to strive for uniformity? Is there a preferred positioning? How do we distinguish number of coils? Is 1 coil established as soon as the active length of wire is tangent to the becket exit hole? Most importantly, how do I achieve the right balance between maintaining becket alignment and tuning requirements? [your e-con here] David Skolnik RTT Hastings on Hudson, NY At 10:07 AM 10/5/2009, you wrote: I suppose there could possibly be a job where you have to choose between cosmetics, charges that compromise the payer's ability to pay the mortgage and some more important functional details, but most of the time you don't. I don't think we were ever really talking about lining up beckets versus regulating the action properly. Neither, of course, does not perfectly aligned beckets mean that the rest of the job was crap. But 99% of the time you can pay attention to all the functional and performance aspects AND the cosmetic details that make the job look just that much nicer. I don't see it as a compromise nor should those who pay attention to the beckets and other cosmetic details be indicted for necessarily leaving other more important aspects undone. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com <http://www.davidlovepianos.com/> Yes, I am aware of that. I work both sides of the fence - I am only half-time at the University and have only been there for about the last 5 years of my career. What bothers me about all this is there IS that time pressure on the private practitioner - from the client who wants his/her instrument back and from the need to pay the mortgage at some point. And guess what one is working on when that time pressure comes - voicing and regulation. And so more often than not I see all the fussing has been done early in the process - when the cosmetic stuff is being done - and the latter, functionally critical stuff gets shorted. It's really easy to talk yourself into believing that the piano plays and sounds fine (especially when the regulating is done by formula and not on the basis of function - but that's an entirely different discussion). Not that I am complaining - I have made plenty money re-regulating and revoicing some of those "purty" pianos over the years. It's just not good for the profession when people find out that those very expensive nice-looking "fully rebuilt" pianos aren't what they are cracked up to be... I just hate it when people generalize about workmanship on the basis of insignificant cosmetic details. Israel Stein -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091005/684585e3/attachment-0001.htm>
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