beckets

[Richard Brekne]

JIMRPT@aol.com wrote:

> Nope the "question" is/was 'Does tapping/tightening coils-beckets make for a
> more stable tuning'.....................  "Do" ain't "why"...... not the same
> thingees although related.......
> :-)
> Jim Bryant (FL)

That's the question all right, and so far the only answers have been pretty much
pure speculation based on something akin to "my vast experience"... grin... which
leaves us dangling in every direction. Intuitively it would seem that if *you*
can cause instability in string tension by tapping/tightening the coils-beckets,
then its is possible or likely that something else could initiate the effect as
well. And, also just as intuitively if your tapping away at the coil or squeezing
away at the becket yields no change in string tension, then probably nothing else
could do it either... so we tighten coils and beckets to be on the safe side.

As to whether and at what point this really becomes necessary... me thinks that
will be difficult to arrive at... oh you could ponce out some friction numbers
and the like... and they would probably be far enough away from the real case to
make them basically useless, or you could do all kinds of empirical
experimentation to try and isolate the exact effect under varying conditions to
arrive at some answer.

For myself... I like the looks of nice tight coils and beckets, and I figure it
certainly cant do any harm to tighten them up. So if time allows I generally take
care of at least the worst ones as I tune along. Not that I get extreme about
anything... heck I know this one fellow who gets really upset at beckets not
pointing the same direction and exactly the << correct >> amount of coil... which
to him means 4 coils in the treble, 3 in the bass. That's getting carried away
IMHO... but they do look nice when he's done restringing a pianer.

Cheers
RicB




--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
UiB, Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html