Jumpy pins (new one on me)

[Ted Simmons]

>   My question is this:
>The entire piano had jumpy, sort of loose, tuning pins. Some were worse
>than others, but they would all hold. There were a few that, when bumped
>backwards, would go all the way down. But when I brought them back up, they
>held.
>   The only other time I've seen pins that jumpy was after some "tooner" in
>West Texas had sprayed WD-40 on the pins and coils to clean off the rust!!
>Any ideas?

Yes, Avery, I have ideas.  You said the piano was on both coasts of
Florida.  If it was on the East coast it's very possible that one of the
tuners was a fellow named Alex Wellner.  He died about 4 years ago and I've
been getting his pianos since then.  He had a habit of spraying the tuning
pins with WD-40 and I think he also sprayed the copper of the bass strings.
I've had so many of his pianos that I can tell one of his without even
opening the top.  The bass strings sound lifeless (thunky) and the tuning
pins are extremely loose.  The only way to tune these is to do the opposite
of what you're trained to do.  Instead of bringing the pin sharp and then
dropping it into tune, just bring it up and leave it there.  You're not
putting any torque on the pin that's for sure.  There's just no resistance
in the pinblock.  Ask the customer if Alex Wellner had ever tuned this
piano.  If the customer says "only once", then that's the solution to your
problem.  It only takes "once".

 Ted Simmons