Pinblocks - Good & Bad

[Ron Nossaman]

>Anyone interested in the perfect pinblock? I am.

Sure, or at least pretty darn good one.


>Where price is not a concern, to the best of my knowledge, the 
>quarter-sawn, 5-ply, hard maple Bolduc pinblock and perhaps the 
>many-laminate, rotary(?)-cut, European Beach Delignite pinblock are 
>considered two of the best. Are there others in this class?

That's two classes, with different characteristics, and there's the rub.


>Bolduc - strong points - excellent tuning feel. What else is good about 
>the Bolduc block?

?


>Bolduc - weak points - lack strength in no-plate-bushings applications - 
>tuning pin can work forward. Is that true? Any other weak points?

I haven't used them, but that's the case with similar blocks I see in 
existing pianos.


>Delignite - strong points - strong, resists pin migration in 
>no-plate-bushings applications, resists tuning characteristic changes with 
>humidity fluctuations.

Yup.


>  Other good points?

?


>Delignite - weak points - drilling critical to get appropriate torque.

Yup.


>Do they last as long - perhaps pins will loosen faster with such a rigid 
>block?

They seem to last as long or longer, since the pins don't migrate and 
deform the hole.


>Thanks for any input.
>
>Terry Farrell

I don't personally see any compelling benefit to the Bolduc or Steinway 
type block. While they are a nice feeling and very forgiving block, I think 
they're too soft to keep the pin from migrating with the string tension. 
Delignit resists pin migration well, but is pretty unforgiving of drilling 
variance. Even though my two bit approach helps a lot there, it was 
developed as a workaround of this problem. The cheap rotary cut blocks are 
both forgiving of drilling variance, and can give a good feel, but aren't 
as resistant to pin migration as Delignit. Something in between should be 
pretty close to ideal. So I've decided to try to split the difference 
between feel, forgiveness, and firmness, with a hybrid. I made up some test 
samples of blocks using a body of the cheap rotary cut block, with a layer 
of Delignit laminated on top. The idea is to get the benefit of the 
resilience of the rotary cut down in the block, with the support and pin 
migration resistance of the Delignit at the top. I tried 6mm, 9mm, and 12mm 
Delignit laminations, as well as a control sample of just the standard 
block. Driving pins into 0.25" holes that would normally be used in just 
the standard block, I find that the 6mm is pretty much the same feel as the 
standard block. The 9mm isn't significantly tighter, bit it is a little, 
while having that much more top support. The 12mm laminated sample was 
considerably tighter, and there is more difference in torque from pin to 
pin than in any of the other configurations. Double drilling would most 
likely have evened this out some, but part of what I was looking for was 
idiot resistance in use, so I drilled everything in one pass. At this 
point, I like the 9mm lamination best, and I expect I'll use it in a piano 
soon unless something I find in further testing changes my mind.

It seems like a fair split between the best of both worlds.

Ron N