string termination

[Carl Meyer]

A lot of things about string terminations have bugged me for some time.

Ron Overs (who I respect) promotes hardening of the capo bar, yet the 
agraffe is a relatively soft material (brass).  The difference is that the 
capo is straight and the agraffe is round.  Wouldn't the agraffe last longer 
if it were heavily plated with chrome, nickel or??  Oh I forgot, piano techs 
love brass, felt and wood.

Now under normal circumstances, the piano string is terminated (pivoted) on 
the top surface of the agraffe.  Let's call that North.  Let's call the 
bottom of the agraffe South.  The other two surfaces would be called east 
and west.

At the bridge, the string is terminated at maybe SSE (south south east).

Wapin claims that their vertical bridge pin encourages the string to vibrate 
in the horizontal direction quicker before the energy has been dissipated in 
the vertical mode and hence -longer sustain.

Let's make it a given that the impact of the hammer is in a northern 
direction.

Stuart of Australia claims that their bridge termination increases the 
vertical vibration of the string.   Hmmmm?  How does that effect the 
sustain????

My esteemed colleuge from one of the fly over states suggests that a string 
starts out vibrating vertically, slowly starts to drift horizontally but 
never gets to true horizontal.  He also suggests that a string tends to 
vibrate at 90 degrees of its termination.  I want to find out if that is 
true.

I don't really know, but it has been my assumption (maybe in error) that the 
string vibrated vertically, slowly drifts elliptically, approaches 
horizontal, then elliptically in the other direction and then returns to 
vertical at a much lower level.  This would then be a cyclical phenomenon. 
Sorry for the flurry of five dollar words.

I've been thinking of a new bridge termination scheme for rebuilding  but 
I'm not going to proceed till I answer a basic question.

Here's my question:  A vibrating string has two terminations.  It is excited 
in the northern direction.  (Ignore the strike point)  What effect on tone 
will be the termination of the two ends of the string????? Both north, one 
north and the other south, east or west????   Or no big difference??

I have recently found plans on the net to build an led stroboscope.  I will 
build this and look at a string under vibration. I could stretch a wire 
across my garage and look at it with different terminations.

If some of you deep thinkers have an answer to my question that makes common 
sense, I won't have to do this.  Give me your feedback.  Thanks