Hi Alan Since you asked for thoughts, I'll chime in. You know me well enough by now to know my own thinking on loose pins and single string beats is somewhat different then Ron Nossamans'. To begin with, of course any string seating procedure constitutes a temporary improvement in piano sound. It is not a fix whatsoever, at least not in its usual maintenance sense. IMHO to suggest that we should not carry out appropriately this kind of procedure on the grounds that it is only a <<temporary fix>> is essentially tantamount to saying we should not bother tuning because the piano will just go out of tune again. As to specifics of seating. I will tap the pin down very slightly only if I feel there is a nick (read grove) in the pin that is perhaps holding the string slightly off the bridge surface. I suspect this kind of thing when the sound is fuzzy, unfocused... wavering and not necessarily a matter of single string beats... which I do not believe have much or anything at all to do with a pin that has been pushed up a bit for whatever reasons. I also gently tap the string itself behind the pin on the bridge surface itself with a wooden dowel made of a reasonably soft wood. If the string needs seating... these two will do the job and do so without exasperating any problem with the notch assuming you are careful to be gentle. But I have no expectations at all of relieving any kind of single string beat with any of this. Bridge pins of various hardness are available, tho I dont think you are going to get around the problem of grooving without causing a new problem of string breakage... Lastly I have never ever ever seen a piano completely free of single string beats. No matter what kind of bridge configuration has been used. True enough some are nearly clean of them.... but every piano has them, and as a piano gets older they develop more. Cheers RicB Hi Daniel, Having just returned from the PNWC in SLC and taking a class from Ron Nossman, my understanding of what is happening at the bridge-bridge pin- string interface has been revised yet again. Like many others I was taught to seat the strings by tapping gently on the top of the bridge right at each pin. Then that was revised to tapping the string in front of the bridge sideways toward the string. That was revised to tapping the bridge pin down and not tapping the string down at all. Now however, Ron has presented a compelling argument that tapping the pin down is a temporary fix at best (feel free to jump in here Ron when you get back home from SLC). A couple seasonal humidity shifts later and the pin will have risen back up. Not only that, because the pin is at an angle, over the seasons the string pushes up on the pin and in the process creats an oblong hole at the top of the bridge surface (flagpoling of the pin). Result? False beats. Cure? Quick and dirty: CA glue at side of pin opposite the string. Cure at rebuild? Very hard bridge cap with pins epoxied in, but with the pin not seated in the hole. The concept being that the tight fit of the pin at the surface of the bridge is what counts, not whether the pin is seated at the bottom of the hole. In fact, Ron says, a pin tight at the bottom, but flagpoling by a minute amount at the top is still a source of false beats. So the idea of testing the integrity of bridge pins by giving them a yank and assuming that, if they are tight they are still good, may not be an accurate test. BTW, regarding that nick in the side of the bridge pins (caused by the string digging into it) that was the topic of a thread awhile back. Anyone have any thoughts as to the effects of this nick on tone and tuning? I'm guessing that the effect is negative for both (based on absolutely no experiment!) But if my guess is correct, would a harder material for bridge pins be a good idea? Bridge pins are probably #2 steel plated with either copper or nickel, and nickel is harder than copper, right? Talk about long-winded. Thoughts anyone? Alan -- Alan McCoy, RPT Eastern Washington University amccoy at mail.ewu.edu 509-359-4627 --
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC