capo buzz

[Otto Keyes]

By the way, I doubt that I take the capo anywhere near the .5mm mark, since
I can't say I've actually measured it.  That's pretty pointy, which, as Fred
points out, quickly becomes pointless for a variety of reasons -- one being
bearing problems on a piano with marginal front bearing in the first place.
A full stringing job allows for adjustments, but stringing the capo section
gives little lee way.  As someone mentioned, spacing strings before pulling
all the way to pitch does much less damage to the capo as well.  My
objective is to get a good smooth radius with a sharper radius cut on the
speaking side so there is less chance of contact & resultant zinging.
That's the theory anyhow!  Practice seldom yields perfection....just a
refined repeat of past imperfections.

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Sturm" <fssturm@unm.edu>
To: "College and University Technicians" <caut@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 10:57 AM
Subject: RE: capo buzz


> Lance,
> 70's through early 80's there was quite a fad of filing capos "to a
> point," by people following McMorrow's book. Then lots of techs found that
> the wire shortly buried itself in said point (ie, created grooves while
> being tuned and played), with associated loss of clarity and power and
> return of noise. Then some folks got the bright idea of hardening
sharpened
> capo. Which solved one problem to cause another - increased string
> breakage. So that to this day there are those who associated hardened
capos
> with string breakage (I think it is caused by the sharpened profile of the
> capo, meaning a sharper kink in the wire).
>   This, at any rate, is the observation of somebody who listened on the
> sidelines over those years. I think the consensus is .5mm is to short a
> radius. It's more important that the capo surface be smooth and clean -
and
> lubricated after reshaping to reduce rust and string drag. You do want the
> shape to allow the wire to leave the capo cleanly: there must be adequate
> curvature.
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> University of New Mexico
>