CA glue vs. PinTite

[Susan Kline]

I recently tried CA glue for a very old Zimmerman upright
with loose pins. It is the first time that I have used it
for more than a pin or two.

In this case, I tried to be fairly conservative. I tilted
the piano, and because there were plate bushings, I slacked
off the strings on the worst notes, removed the coils, and
turned out the pins. For the very worst note I turned the pin
all the way out, swabbed the hole with CA by putting some
on a piece of hammer shank, put some more CA on the tuning
pin sides, and turned it back in. It set up fairly quickly,
but was a little bit jumpy.

That seemed pretty laborious, so for the other 6 or seven
notes (ca. 10-12 pins) I took off the coils, turned them
about 1/2 way out, dripped CA glue on the sides, and turned
them back in.

I liked the results. Within a few minutes I could get them
to hold, and they weren't jumpy like my first attempt. I
returned to the piano a couple of weeks later, to put on a
new bass string, and the notes were holding well. Pitch was
a little low from being slacked off, but not much, and the
pins felt good as I touched up the tuning.

I'm wondering now if I could have done individual pins
without tilting the piano, just removing the action, turning
out the offending pin(s) halfway out, dripping the CA
carefully so it coated the exposed threads without
getting all over the place, and turning back in. It would
surely save time and bother not to tilt the piano.

As you can tell, I like CA for notes that truly need it,
rather than a blanket approach. Lots less work, and seems
effective. If I can develop a system that doesn't take
a ton of labor, it could almost turn into "ongoing maintenance,"
getting done to individual pins as needed, possibly
several years apart.

Susan Kline