[CAUT] Re: Impact Tuning

[Terry Beckingham]

I purchased the Cyber Impact Hammer from Dean Reyburn. At the moment, I 
have mixed feelings about it. I have not used it a great deal. It seems to 
work fairly well for me while doing a pitch correction on the wound 
strings. In some cases, I have not had to retune the bass after the pitch 
correction (PRCT would give at least a partial blush on each string). The 
plain wire has been giving me some trouble, at least in the treble. I guess 
my technique is not yet refined enough to make the small movements required.

When I first got the hammer, it had a 5 ounce weight. I found that the 
force required to fling the weight over enough to get tight tuning pins to 
move, also caused the weight to rebound with sufficient force that it would 
cause the tuning pin to move in the opposite direction. I brought this to 
Dean's attention and he sent me a heavier weight (7 oz) at no charge. This 
has greatly improved my use of the hammer.

The hammer is well made and should last a long time. Dean uses a quality 
tip on the hammer. I don't know where he obtains them but the  seem really 
good.

I hope this helps.

Terry Beckingham RPT

At 11:59 AM 6/18/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>Don Rose would like me to expand on a statement that I made that inpact
>tuning works in some cases, but not in others - i.e., the reasons why.
>
>Don, the short answer is that there are so many variables.  At one extreme,
>we have tuning pins that are too lose to hold.  At the other extreme, we
>have pins that are so tight it's a toss-up whether the pin will turn in the
>block, bend, or break off at the eye.  There are all sorts of conditions in
>between these extremes - some blocks with plenty of resiliency, and others
>that are hard as rocks.
>
>And to further complicate the matter, some pins in some very hard blocks
>will be farily loose at the top, but very tight at the botton.  When you
>try to set these, the pin just twists until there is enough torque to
>overcome the frection at the botton end, and then it jumps with a shap.  We
>have all encountered this, and it's very frustrating.
>
>Then we have conditions where there is a lot of friction and drag at the
>agraffe, V-bar, or capo bar.  Worse still is the situation where the string
>jumps in the agraffe.  Couple this with junping pins, and you get the
>picture.  Then we have the opposite condition where there is so little
>friction at the bearing point that just touching the pin will make the
>string move.
>
>Right now, I don't use an impact hammer, but when I can't get a tuning pin
>to settle at the right spot any other way, I'll sometimes use my hamd
>against the handle of the tuning hammer in an impact mode.  It may work, or
>it may not.  I should add:  In this particular case, I'm talking about
>verticals.  I don't ever remember doing it while tuning a grand.
>
>In summary, it's just that there are so many variables.  You will find that
>there are cases where an impact method will do a better job gatting you
>where you want to go, but you will find many others where it will not, and
>the standard hammer techniques will work best.
>
>Sincerely, Jim Ellis
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives