Tuning Forks... Terry

[Brian Trout]

Hi again Terry,

Wow, I feel a little sheepish about the comments I made about getting
together with other tuners... now that you tell me of your location.

It sounds like you're the only one in your market.  How is your area for
finding business?  Is there enough close to you to support a tech?

I suspect you probably have a better handle on the tuning fork thing than
you think.  But since I have a source for tuning the forks accurately, I
wasn't happy 'till I had tuned mine as accurately as I could.  I did mine at
closer to body temperature since I handle my fork quite a lot, as well as
hold it in my mouth for a bit while tuning A440.

Another thing I found with my fork was that over the first 3 or 4 seconds,
it'll make the little bars on the display move towards the flat side, and
then at around 5 or 6 seconds, it'll start moving them towards the sharp
side.  It's very slow movement, and only amounts to hundredths of a cent,
but I am aware of it.

It's not hard to tune a fork.  I just got out a file and since it was a
little flat, I started to take a few swipes evenly across the ends of the
tines.  Then I checked it to see what I did.  Almost nothing.  So I kept on
going.  And before too long, it was making a difference.  And after 15
minutes or so, I had it tweaked to the point where I now feel confident in
it again.  The only thing I thought to pay particular attention to was
taking as close to the same amount of metal off of each tine as possible.
If you get it a little too sharp, you just take a small amount of metal off
of the tines down near the base of the fork, again trying to take it off
evenly from both sides.

If I had realized that it would be that easy, I think I would have done it a
long time ago.

Anyway, best of luck to you in your isolated area.  It's good you have the
e-mail and can keep in contact with the list.  I've found a number of
friends here, and so many knowledgable and helpful people.

Take care,

Brian Trout
Quarryville, PA
btrout@desupernet.net