Broken Pins/Agraffes

[TunerJeff@aol.com]

Dear Folks,

     Broken agraffes? Zero. (Only 16 years from this tuner/tech...)
     Broken Pins? Zero in my own experience ('though the pins chewed by
Vise-Grips were almost useless)...but.... do have a tale for you.

     Fellow member of Guild had a brand-new Baldwin Grand with EXTREMELY
tight pins. The pinblock was uncontrollable, as the pins only leaped from
position to position. You could actually feel the pins twisting and
distorting as you pulled on the hammer, and then suddenly SPANG!... it would
shift position. No fine control. Very jumpy. She called Baldwin and was told
that Baldwins never have pins that are too tight, however... we'll ship you a
2-page pamphlet that may help you. (Strange how that happened to be
available, eh?)

     Following the directions, she rotated ALL the pins about 50-degrees flat
& back to pitch several times. In the high-treble, one of these pins decided
enough was enough... and snapped off flush to the plate-bushing. At this
point...she called on her fellow tuner/tech types. A bunch of us local
tuner/techie types showed up at her shop and applied hammers to pins. We all
agreed that this piano was NOT tunable with those pins/pinblock. We all added
our names & businesses to her letter... and shipped our collective opinion to
Baldwin.

     Upshot of the effort? Got her client a new piano. Same model. It was
tunable.

Truly,
Jeffrey T. Hickey, RPT
Oregon Coast Piano Services
TunerJeff @ aol.com

ps- Baldwin Pianos often have TIGHT pinblocks. The "Falconwood Pinblock" is a
true marvel of pinblocktitude...once mastered, they can be extremely stable.
Heard Del Fandrich explain that one of Baldwin's stress-tests for the block
is 24-hours of immersion in BOILING water. If it de-laminates... it ain't
strong enough! (Of course... if you boil the rest of the piano for 24-hours,
you'd likely have other problems wouldn't you!?) Amazing.