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In the past, whenever it came time to tune one of my bowed psalteries, I noticed that even when using the longest of the commercially available tuning wrenches, I was still having trouble getting some of the strings tuned accurately. It was then that I looked down and noticed the ferrule on my tuning wrench coming loose, and instead of trying to fix it, I thought, "hey, why don't I make an entirely new handle: one long enough to suit my needs..." I realized that just because everyone else was selling shorter wrenches, didn't mean that that was the only option. After making my very first tuning wrench and seeing how well it performed when I used it to tune a psaltery, I came to this "wrenching" discovery:

Nearly all tuning wrenches sold today are of insufficient length to get adequate leverage to make accurate adjustments!

In many tuning situations, standard tuning wrenches are just plain too short, and don't allow you to make minute and accurate adjustments to the tuning pins on your musical instrument. Whether it is a psaltery, a dulcimer, a zither, a harpsichord, or an autoharp, chances are there are at least a few strings that can give you trouble. This is especially true on shorter strings, where a tiny movement on the pin can make a big difference in the string's pitch.

A longer wrench helps you get more leverage to make minute adjustments to the strings.

It's all about leverage. The longer the handle, the more leverage you have over the pin. Say you had a tuning wrench with a handle that was ten feet long. You could rotate the end of the handle several inches, even a foot or more, and the pin would have only moved in the slightest rotation in its hole. This would be the ultimate in tuning accuracy, but it wouldn't be very practical.

(No, I don't sell any tuning wrenches that are ten feet long!)

But I do make ones that approach one foot in total length. They are much longer than most any of the commercially available wrenches today, and give the most accurate and controlled means of tuning. Let me help illustrate this with a graph:

Above you can see a small 3/16" diameter circle in the upper left, representing a standard tuning pin. Next, you see a 45 degree angle proceeding from the tuning pin, which is a hypothetical instance of turning the pin 1/8 of a turn.

Now, you can see how far you'd have to move a 5" long wrench in order to get the actual pin to move 1/8 of a turn on the instrument: just over 3 3/4". (Distance measurements are taken from the back of the handle on the wrench.)

Also, you see the distance needed to move the same pin the same distance using a much longer wrench, one that is 11" long (a good length representation of the gooseneck wrenches available on this website.) You'll notice that the longer wrench has to move much farther: almost 8 1/2" for 1/8 of a rotation on the tuning pin.

What this graph is showing is that a longer wrench has to move farther, and make much more exaggerated movements in order to make the same adjustment to a tuning pin that a shorter wrench would make. And because the longer wrench has to move farther, you are better able to control and regulate the amount you move the pin - and consequently the amount you change the pitch on a musical string.