>From time to time I have plugged the occasional tuning pin hole and have had consistently good results. Regarding moving the center of the tuning pin hole laterally, I wouldn't worry too much about the glue line. Here is why: A colleague in the Northern Virginia Chapter of PTG came across an upright with loose pins which had been re-pinned with 7-0 pins! (If you've never seen 7-0 pins, they look like little cigars.) Anyway, he pulled the 7-0 pins out, filled the (huge) holes with epoxy, then inserted 2-0 pins in the still liquid epoxy. Once the epoxy dried the pins had satisfactory torque which remains to this day. Talk about your glue line! And while on the subject of epoxy and pin blocks . . . It is now my standard practice to suspect the existance of cracks in the pin block when two or more adjacent pins have low torque. So after pulling the loose pins out (with my vice grips), I swab the inside of the tuning p[in hole with a viscous epoxy, then I line the hole with veneer (sandpaper works OK), then I reinstall the original pin which then usually torques out at 70 or 80 inch pounds. I reckon the the epoxy has been forced into the walls of the crack, thereby curing the original cause of the loose tuning pin problem. I also reckon that just installing larger diameter pins will cause the crack to widen and thus cause the original problem to reappear. Jim DeRocher
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