<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html>   Ron Nossaman wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE>  The same vast amount of experience indicates the same of seating strings. For a string at 20° angle side bearing on a bridge pin, and about 160# tension, the frictional drag between string and pin as over 14#. Tapping the pin is the equivalent of setting a 14# weight on the string at the very edge of the notch and hitting it with a hammer. The only time it does anything that direct string seating doesn't is when the pin is severely grooved. Ron N    </blockquote> Ron, I know this is one of your pet peeves so I doubt we are going to quite see eye to eye here. I know I am able to seat the strings without damaging the bridge. I also know that this often enough results in an improvment of sound when the strings actually do click down against the bridge. I  believe  that the kind of falsness that this addresses is quite a different thing then the kind of falseness loose bridge pins cause. Again... (as we've run this route before)  as for the rest of your points on this matter, I suspect you are more right then wrong with most of it. However the fix for the problem you focus on is quite a bit more involved then what a field visit will allow for, not to mention more expensive. However temporary string seating is in any given instance, it certainly can help improve the sound, and certainly can be done carefully enough to not exasperate the problem. That this fact also may be viewed as a symptom of a more serious root problem along the lines you sketch out is another matter IMV. Cheers RicB -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway <A HREF="mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no">mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no</A> <A HREF="http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html">http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html</A>  </html>