Hitch Pin Loops, was: Restringing

[Ron Nossaman]

>Greg, Ron and anyone else caring to chime in:
>
>The right (as opposed to the left or center) string on the piano I am 
>restringing is individually tied to it's own hitch pin. I have installed 
>vertical hitches on this piano. I tried tying a regular loop (so like, 
>what is that?) while leaving some wiggle room (slack so it was not tight 
>to the hitch), but that just came unwrapped. Roger Jolly spoke of German 
>loops a while back. What are they? Perhaps to take full advantage of the 
>vertical hitch, I really want to make a real loose loop like you would put 
>on a bass string? Yes? Ideas?
>
>Terry Farrell

I just leave a slightly longer tail on the regular loop, bending the end up 
so it doesn't dig into the plate finish. The loop shouldn't be very high on 
the hitch anyway, so it doesn't need to be a lot longer. You can't leave 
these loops loose on the pin because they'll creep tighter over time and 
muck up the tuning, so you have to snug them up. With the tight loop and 
tail riding the plate, you lose some of that free movement the vertical 
hitch supplies, but it's still not nearly as bad as the short tuned back 
scale bending over an aliquot bar. English loops would be better, but I 
doubt you could hear the difference with just one string of the unison tied.

Ron N