An "Aha" Moment

At 3:30 in the morning, as I lay in bed fretting about frets, it occurred to me that I might have misunderstood what the manual was trying to communicate. Tapping "toward the bass" could mean one of two things:

• the bass of the instrument, which would be to the left/west 
• the bass of the bridge, which would be to the south.

As I was visualizing the strung instrument, I was trying to figure out how in the heck pins would prevent the strings from riding up if they were bent toward the bass end of the instrument. In addition, by tapping in that direction, I was tapping along the grain of the wood and encouraging that crack.

If my musings were correct, instead of left-leaning pins, I should have been trying to create southbound pins, thus tapping against the grain and not encouraging the cracking. After all, the instrument is strung east-west, not north-south like a harpsichord! Doh! I should realize that if I can't make sense of something, it's probably because it's wrong.

A response from the manual's author confirmed all my suspicions.  So now I'll try tapping the pins again, this time in the correct direction and, hopefully, with better success.