Hi Richard, Here goes another can of worms!! <grin> I didn't have the heart to bring it up, but since you did... I've heard the same things talked about briefly. My own personal observations are that the tuning pin bushings tend towards making a piano easier to tune because it eliminates a major part of the flagpoling that happens with the pianos without them. As far tuning stability, I haven't really noticed that the pianos without the bushings were so very much better than the ones with them. If you've ever tuned a piano without the tuning pin bushings that had tight tuning pins and poor rendering, you might find yourself wishing that they had put in some tuning pin bushings. (I know I have...) When I'm rebuilding one, if it had them, I put them back. If it didn't have them originally, I don't normally put them in. Also, when drilling the pinblock screw holes, I always place them towards the keyboard side of the holes in the plate (pinblock is already fit to the flange) so that when the screws are tightened, those screws are giving the pinblock a push into the flange when they're being tightened. It takes out any forward / aft slop that there might be between the pinblock screws and the plate holes and doesn't really give the pinblock anywhere to go. (I hope I said that right. It's hard to put into words.) Another thing I've heard about, but never seen in person, are piano plates that have two flanges, one on the front side of the pinblock, and one on the back side of the pinblock. I would think with a setup like that, you could do pretty much anything you wanted to, and have very few people who would want to argue with you. Still one more factor might be the idea that many pinblocks are fastened quite rigidly to the case / inner rim / stretcher of the piano, and might be less likely to move in relation to the rest of the piano than one that is not fastened to anything other than the plate web. (For what it's worth, I always do fasten a new pinblock into the case of the piano in as secure a way as I feel I can, regardless of how it was (or wasn't) fastened originally.) As always, there's lots of factors involved, and many preconceived ideas. Dang, this gets complicated, doesn't it??? Just had to add my two cents. FWIW Best wishes, Brian Trout Quarryville, PA btrout@desupernet.net
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