<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; = charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1126" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff><FONT face=Arial size=2> <DIV>Hello Ron. I there anything you can tell us about hardening the = capo. I've seen you write about that before. Is this something you do in your shop? = Do you do it to all pianos? Do you have a method of testing the hardness of the = capo? Am I asking questions that have already been answered? Thanks. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Terry Farrell </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    Terry, I don't know about Ron, but I've thought = about it, and I don't see how you could harden the capo. I hope I'm wrong, but = you hard, or temper a metal by heating it until it glows for a certain = amount of time, and then you quench it in either oil or water. The plate is going = to act as a gigantic heat sink, not allowing the metal to get to the proper = temp, and you'd have trouble quenching it even if you did. When you heat a metal = and allow it to cool by itself, it's called annealing, and it softens the metal. = Others can tell me if I'm all wet, but that's how I understand it. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    Kevin E. Ramsey</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>