far bridge pin

[Ron Nossaman]

>I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'in the field'?

As opposed to in the rebuild shop or factory.


> > I'd say you have been largely wasting your time
> >seating the strings on the speaking side too.
>
>
>So, if I understand this correctly, you don't believe that seating strings to
>the bridge has any effect on false beats?  I thought this part of my
>post/question was pretty much standard procedure, but maybe I'm confused...

It is "standard" procedure, and that's the problem. Loose bridge pins are 
nearly always the cause of false beats, and seating strings doesn't fix 
loose bridge pins. Since seating strings doesn't fix the cause, why is it 
so universally done? I've written about this a whole lot of times on 
pianotech, most recently less than two weeks ago.


>I'd swear that seating strings to the bridge has had an effect on the
>falseness of strings, but maybe I've been experiencing the 'placebo effect'.

It's a short term improvement of the symptoms, but doesn't address the 
cause, so the beats will be back.


>Same thing with tapping the bridge pins in deeper...  I had never done this
>before, but tried it on the advice of a local RPT.  The difference was like
>night and day.  The tone was SO much cleaner with less pitch variation over
>time.  My ETD visually confirmed this.

This is as hard on bridges as seating strings, and may or may not prove to 
be as transient in effect. It can get the string bearing against a new 
surface on the pin, but the pin may be pushed up again in the next dry 
cycle and leave you right where you were with false beats. Still, this is 
probably a better approach than seating strings.


>My question was whether anyone thought that the far bridge pins really have
>any effect on false beats, whether seating string to them, or tapping them
>in.  The speaking side pins certainly do, IMHO.
>
>Am I confused?
>
>Tom S

No, I see no way the back row of bridge pins can affect false beats in the 
speaking length.

Ron N