<html> I always squeeze the knot with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. The splice is more stable having done so. Under full tension just one squeeze will drop the pitch a half tone. You can't tell me that this does not shorten the 'stretch-in' time. I squeeze the knot on its length and width. I also leave it slightly sharp with a mute so by the next tuning it is stable. The benefit of a splice is that there is a shorter new piece of wire to stretch and the appearance of the strings through the scale is not disrupted by a shiny, new wire and possible tone variation. Heck, I've even tied knots in the speaking length of bass strings without adverse tone reduction (18 years and still holding).  But only once have I gotten lucky to have a splice come out well at the bridge end of the speaking length. However, if after the second attempt to splice (wire failure) replace the wire completely. There is a point of diminishing returns. Remember Santa's checking to see who's been knotty and nice... Jon Page At 12:48 PM 12/17/2000 +0100, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>Ron Nossaman wrote: > >The point is that they do tighten further with time, and not a lot of it, > correctly tied or not. The beholder's ear should register that without a > lot of trouble were the beholder to splice a string or two. > > Ron N Well gee Ron... I have spliced quite a few strings... and after assuring the "knot" is good I have observed that they do not move significantly at all. Pull a well spliced string up to pitch and its much more stable then a new string.   Point is that this works and works well, and for many is considered a better solution then replacements. I am not sure the ears can  register movement in the knot even over time.  Not a big point tho.. strings will get out of tune anyways. I kinda agree with Clydes take on this personally, except I dont use Universals. -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. Bergen, Norway <a href="mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no" eudora="autourl">mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no</a></blockquote> <div>Jon Page,   piano technician</div> <div>Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass.</div> <div><a href="mailto:jonpage@mediaone.net" EUDORA=AUTOURL>mailto:jonpage@mediaone.net</a></div> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ </html>