super glue battle, a time to "dope"

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 3/29/99 10:08:49 PM Central Standard Time,
larudee@pacbell.net writes:

<< I leave the door open to be convinced.  It just hasn't happened yet.
 
 Paul
  >>
Paul,

I'm the kind of technician that believes there is a time and place for
everything.  I certainly prefer to work on nice pianos that require the usual
kinds of maintenance.  I refer rebuilding cases to a fellow Chapter member who
specializes in that and who doesn't do much tuning even though he is masterful
at it.

Still, there comes a time.  One case in point for me happened several years
ago when I was asked to take over the tuning of the pianos at the local
community college.  There was Steinway B that was used for the rehearsals of
the Symphony Chorus and the Opera.  It was nearly untunable because of loose
tuning pins.  Yet, it had been "rebuilt" only a few years before.

The whole job was what I would describe as incompetent, if not fraudulent.
Yet, it would have done me no good to just say that the instrument should be
replaced or rebuilt again and refuse to do anything with it.  I, for one,
would be working with that piano quite often as a performing musician.  There
was no money for replacement and even if there were money for a restoration,
how much confidence do you think the college's board of directors would have
in someone *else* trying to accomplish that which had obviously failed before?

I won't say all of the bad things that could be said about the way this piano
was handled, I'll only say that the pins were not driven in very deeply and
the coils were spread out badly.  I simply got to work, straightened the coils
and drove the pins in to the proper specs *and* combined that operation with a
liberal dose of CA glue.

The piano has remained tunable ever since, now 9 years, it has a nearly normal
feel, somewhat grindy and jumpy but still with good, high torque.  I also
corrected all of the other things that I could to the best of my ability.  It
has a Telflon action and many people say it has a "heavy" touch.  

There is one thing good about it, though and that is, that in spite of all
it's negative history and battered case, it sounds really terrific with a
uniquely Steinway sound.  It was on this piano that I got the opportunity to
develop the Equal Beating Victorian Temperament that I use most of the time.
It was for the rehearsals of a World Premier Opera called, "Shining Brow" in
which I was also privileged to be a member of the cast.

I don't think I did the wrong thing by treating this pinblock with CA glue.

There *is* a time and place for "doping" a pinblock, like the idea or not, and
CA glue seems to work better than any other "dope", even thinned epoxy (which
does also work well), but certainly better than other products that were in
common use beforehand.  The reason being that it fills the gap, not just
swells the wood, and it combines with other matter into something that is very
sticky that doesn't go away or beak down.

My preferred use of it is in a spot repair, to fix an individual loose pin.  I
can make the repair without having to have a supply of pins with me and not
change the appearance of the piano.  I extract the pin and use the medium or
thick viscosity CA glue to coat the hole and as "pin driving fluid".  (This
can also be done effectively with epoxy).  I've never had it fail and the
repair usually has very high torque and a more or less normal feel to it.

Sincerely,
Bill Bremmer RPT