Ric, It seems to me that the bridge pin should be hard enough to avoid significant yielding at the contact point, to provide a reliable termination, but I'm wondering if hardness is the issue though. In my opinion, if the string "tears" the bridge pin, that is not good.  Conversely, if the bridge pin tears the string, that might be even worse.  Metals have different affinity for each other such that they tend to adhere together more so than others.  Iron has the much affinity for itself.  Iron has less affinity for titanium, so I'd say - yes, good idea. I like Ron Overs' electroless nickel plated bridge pins even better though, because they retain the stiffness of steel, and iron's affinity for nickel is similar to titanium. Best, Steve   <div>On 4/17/07, RicB <<a href="mailto:ricb@pianostemmer.no" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">ricb@pianostemmer.no</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Interesting Steve.... So... getting back to harder then steel wire bridge pins.... and the standard ones.....  what say you to Freds comments about Sauters experiement with titanium bridge pin ?  Good idea / bad / or 50 cents of one and a half dozen of another ? Cheers RicB     Gentlemen,     I asked the "big tire" question way back in engineering school, and the     explanation was that when a tire slips on concrete it is not a matter of     exceeding a friction factor, it is actually tearing the material.  Since     larger tires have more surface contact area, there is more material     to tear     which takes higher forces and results in more traction.  This is not the     classical "friction" scenario.     There is another situation with big tires.  If you are on wet     concrete, then     big tires may afford less traction because the water cannot squeeze     out from     under the tire.  (hydroplaning) This is a lubricated interface,     unlike the     one above.     Best regards to all,     Steve Fujan     -- </blockquote></div>