Touchy Young Chang... Jumpy tuning pins

[btrout@desupernet.net]

Hi Mike,

Interesting YC experience.  I'm curious if you had a hygrometer with you
today?  Was the humidity level fairly high?  I'm just wondering what will
happen to a tight pinblock when a water tank gets inserted into the bottom
of the piano!

Too tight pins are a real pain.  New Baldwins, Steinway uprights, maybe a
few others... The piano's with acujust hitch pins can be horrible to tune
with jumpy pins.  The wire jumps around that hitch pin and changes the one
you just tuned! AARRGGHH!!!  And it puzzles me sometimes to find a piano
full of tight snappy pins, and find a half dozen mixed in that are so loose
you wonder if they'll hold!

Is there a remedy for those jumpy snapping tuning pins?  CPL is certainly a
temptation, but would likely cause a lot more problems... we shouldn't go
there.  But what's a tuner to do???

It's a sincere question?... anybody have a good secret?

Brian Trout
Quarryville, Pa.

Mike McCoy wrote:

> Hi List folk,
>
>  Just returned from a 1985 YC F116 upright and I was told "the previous
> tuner said the pins are VERY tight so it needs to be tuned very often".
> What I found was the majority of the pins in the treble were tight, some
> extremely...all very jumpy and maybe 6 that were extremely loose, from
> the treble break on down the majority were what I consider average, not
> very tight, a few very loose and a few extremely tight and again, all
> jumpy. Unison tuning was a bear on the notes with 3 varying degrees of
> pin torque. We talked about Dampp Chaser and gave her the brochure.
>
> Is this common or not for a 14yr old YC?
>
> DO I assume correctly the a Dampp Chaser system will help at least a
> little?
> Will a standard front system fit in there? Didn't look deep enough for a
> tank to me.
>
> Thanks folks....
>
> --
> Mike McCoy
> So Central Pa Chapter 170
> Middletown, Pa
> Mailto:mjmc@ibm.net