Open-Face Pinblock & Stringing

[Ron Overs]

At 7:50 PM -0500 1/1/03, Terry Farrell wrote:

>I have the coil tightening tool that has a weight on a shaft that 
>you bang upwards. I've only restrung a couple pianos with it, but it 
>seems as though the edges that should hook onto the coil have 
>rounded off and each time you bang the weight, it just jumps off the 
>coil. I likely bought mine from Schaff or APSCO. Is there a better 
>quality one available?

We had the same experience with the impact coil lifter from APSCO. 
However, we had already built our own in-house tool prior to getting 
an APSCO tool. The APSCO tool is basically a good design, but the 
lifting lip is too soft and the tip needs to be thinned down at the 
top and bottom of the 'C' to allow easier access to some of the 
tighter tuning pin fields. If you get a local toolmaker to turn up a 
new tip from oil quenching silver steel you can harden it with an oil 
quench, and temper it until it just starts to turn from straw to 
blue. A good impact coil lifter is the only way to go.

Alternatively, you could re-grind the lip of the original tip and try 
to heat treat it. But the success if this will depend somewhat on the 
analysis of the material used. If you've got a lath and a die grinder 
you could re-grind the lip without any trouble. For those who have a 
lathe but no die grinder, the grinder is a must for rebuilders. They 
are the best tool for the initial reshaping of the V bars prior to 
hardening. With mounted points they can do some wonderful work on the 
lathe, but you must remember to put newspaper over the ways to keep 
them free of grinding dust.

Happy new year to all,
Ron O.
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OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY
Grand Piano Manufacturers

Web: http://overspianos.com.au
mailto:info@overspianos.com.au
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