Restringing

[Jon Page]

At 07:24 AM 1/17/98 EST, you wrote:
>  I have also never tried Jon's method of wedges, although it seems as if
they
>will work just fine also.  Bottom line, Glenn, if it works for you, go for
it.
>No one that I have seen so far has all the "right" answers to anything.  :-)
>Jim Bryant (FL)

I forgot to mention that the wedges are placed between pieces of pinblock
material for area coverage and height allowances. The thing I like with the
wedges is speed, a few hits with the hammer and they are installed or removed.
You can knock out the wedges, move the support and knock them back in
before you are finished_unscrewing_the jacks.

I also made risers to place under the casters. This brings everything up to a
comfortable working height. Again employing the use of a 2X4 remnant, cut
two square pieces out and stack them. Bore a shallow hole in the top to 
sit the caster in, make three of these.  This is also useful in sound board
work too.
4X4 blocks would work too.  Sometimes if the keybed is flexable, support
that too;
I think John Travis was an advocate of that regardless.

Cotton gloves (yard work variety - not Susan's Sunday go to Meetin' ones)
keeps strings cleaner. A leather thumb guard relieves stress on the digit.

Being right handed, I started out in the treble and worked towards the bass.
But now I start in the tenor, still right to left; then the second section;
and so on.
Since I take the slack off the string while stringing I figured I might as
well start in 
the tenor to start flexing the board as I go along. With this tensioning
approach
I've found it less fatiguing at the end of the day.  The shorter strings go
faster so
the end of the job zips right along. Otherwise, the longer strings seemed
to drag on.

A side benefit of using the Becket Tool is an approach to chipping. Knowing
that 
your beckets are going to be aligned by the measure, chipping can be done by
placing the beckets uniformly. This speeds things up with a stringing hook
in one 
hand and the tuning hammer in the other, no plucking. When the beckets are
postioned about 2:00 it is almost at pitch where you can procede with tuning.
Parellel pliers work well for squeezing in the becket, tap coils, etc.

Before the tension is all the way up, space the strings - muy importante.
Neatness counts.  Also, mind the pin height.

Hi Newton, any interesting reading?

Jon Page
Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass. (jpage@capecod.net)
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