stretching wire -- an anecdotal analysis

[Ron Nossaman]

> << Granted, this sounds reasonable, but why should such tightening of the 
> slack 
> in the coil happen slowly? What is the physical mechanism that causes this
> type of pitch drop to be time release? >>
> 
> I assume it is the friction around the tuning pin which is slowly allowing 
> the stress in the wire to overcome it.  
> Anybody got any other ideas? 

I think settling of the coil is a significant part of it, 
along with the bending around the friction points, etc. 
Everything in the universe is on the way to someplace else, 
more or less. Nothing will stay where it is (now presumed to 
be) forever, convenient as that might be. In the case of the 
coil, temperature changes from hour to hour will change the 
wire length, including that wrapped around the pin, and it 
will tend to settle and tighten on the pin and lower the 
tension in the string - to a point. Years later, settling the 
coil will cause another pitch drop by overcoming the friction 
around the pin that the temperature changes didn't. There are 
a lot of things going on here, and trying to assign a 100% 
effect to any one simple cause is just going to leave us in 
continuing darkness.
Ron N