<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><DIV>On Jul 24, 2006, at 9:42 PM, william ballard wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Which bring up another point: theoretically as soon as the crown gets string cuts, there's no such thing as open strings. The string cuts may be of different lengths, but ironically, these grooves are the product of another kind of mating.</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Theoretically, this may be so. Practically speaking, I don't think it happens. I don't think string grooves ever conform to the string levels through wear. I used to believe it would happen, and thought I could just get things close and let the piano be "played in." Doesn't work in my experience. And looking at pianos with out of level strings, I don't find out of level grooves. And I find that they aren't mating, hammer to strings. I think that the distance differences are so slight that they are obscured by the amplitude of movement of the strings when they are struck, and that there is too much "springiness" in the system, both hammerfelt and strings for there to be significantly more wear on the groove that strikes its string first.</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Perhaps others have different experience along these lines, but those I have spoken to agree that an unmated hammer never really becomes mated.<BR><DIV><DIV>Regards,</DIV><DIV>Fred Sturm</DIV><DIV>University of New Mexico</DIV><DIV><A href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">fssturm@unm.edu</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></DIV><BR></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>