At 16:34 -0400 23/11/08, John Ross wrote: >Should a good string maker be able to determine if a wrong >measurement is supposedly given for a custom string set? Yes. >The set had all the windings uniform at the tuning pin end. However >one pair had the windings half way across the bridge. There were two >other pairs that had one of the pair with a winding 1 mm from the >bridge. It happens to the best of stringmakers from time to time. If you gave wrong measurements, then your man should have picked that up and queried them, but even if you gave right measurements such a mistake could happen for various reasons depending on how the stringmaker works. If you send a rubbing and forget about any measuring, there is far less chance of mistakes. I hate to work from measurements because they do not allow the degree of accuracy in the copper lines that is possible with a rubbing. On the very rare occasions I am sent measurements I transfer them to a pseudo-rubbing and work from that. Any discrepancies are made obvious by this means -- but I make a substantial extra charge for working from measurements because it takes a long time and makes me nervous. I have never understood why people in some other countries prefer measurements. It takes the technician (with or without a helper) far longer to measure the 40 or 50 strings, type it all out and send the order than the ten minutes it takes to get a precise rubbing that will enable the stringmaker to produce a near-perfect copper line. <http://pianomaker.co.uk/rubbing.html> JD (Stringmaker since 1984) -- ______________________________________________________________________ Delacour Pianos * Silo * Deverel Farm * Milborne St. Andrew Dorset DT11 0HX * England Phone: +44 1202 731031 Mobile: +44 7801 310 689 * Fax: +44 870 705 3241 ______________________________________________________________________
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