Here are some photos of a tool that I made for lifting strings on vertical hitch pins, such as the Baldwin Accu-Just pins. It is made from a standard pair of Channel Lock No. 526 pliers. I used these recently when stringing a Baldwin piano and was pleased with the way the tool worked. When stringing a Baldwin with Accu-Just hitch pins per factory instructions, you first adjust all the strings to have zero downbearing, and then proceed in a systematic manner to apply a specified amount of bearing given in Baldwin's instructions. The instructions state that the string should be no closer to the top of the pin than 1/8 inch, or no more than 3/8 inch off the plate. When the string needs to be moved lower on the hitch pin, I take a piece of brass rod and a hammer and tap it down. This works fine except that, unless you are careful, you tend to overshoot and thus need to raise the string back up some. When the string needs to be moved higher on the hitch pin, the procedure in the past was to pull it up with a stringing hook or use a coil lifter with a pad resting on the plate as a fulcrum and pry the string up. I wasn't very happy with either of these methods. With this tool you put the slotted jaw around the hitch pin and under the string, with the other jaw resting on top of the hitch pin. Squeeze to raise the string. It's pretty easy to accurately control how much you raise the string. Also, since it's a one handed operation, you can use the other hand to hold the bearing gage on the backlength of the string to know when you're at the right spot. Before, it was raise the string, put down the tools, put the gage on the string and check, raise the string some more, etc. Since it's now easy to raise the strings, when stringing, I would install strings deliberately low on the hitch pins, and then go along and raise them to the zero bearing point. To set the specified bearing, I would whack a few strings down with the brass rod and hammer so that they were lower than I thought they needed to go, and then go along with the bearing gage and this tool and raise them up to the proper spot. I easily made up the 20 - 30 minutes needed to make the tool in time savings in setting the bearing. Some pertinent features: 1. One jaw has a slot that I put in with a cutoff wheel on a right angle grinder. The width of the slot is just slightly bigger than the diameter of the hitch pins so that it will fit easily around the pin but at the same time the tangs will still be under the string. 2. This same jaw has been reduced in depth on a grinder so that you can get it under a string that is sitting down close to the plate. 3. I epoxied a piece of brass to the face of the other jaw. With the pliers in their secondary position (the position in which the jaws will not close completely) the distance between the faces is now 1/8 inch. So, with the pliers in this position, if you squeeze down completely, you will not have raised the string beyond where Baldwin says it should be on the hitch pin. Without the brass piece, with the jaws in this position, you can only raise the string to within about 1/4 inch of the top of the hitch pin. On the piano I was stringing this did not turn out to be enough to get zero bearing in some places. So, you could then change the position of the jaws to the primary position (the position in which the jaws will close completely) and raise the string some more, but unless you are careful you can lift the string right off the hitch pin (how do I know this?). I made this piece from brass to keep from marring the top of the hitch pin. If I was making another one I think I would just make it steel. Those hitch pins are hard (and hard to mar) and you can see that the brass is already marred from one stringing job. Phil Ford Phillip Ford Piano Service & Restoration 1777 Yosemite Ave - 130 San Francisco, CA 94124 [Photos at:] https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/46/25/4a/a4/VHitch1.jpg https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/93/7a/12/dc/VHitch2.jpg https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/b4/23/59/ac/VHitch3.jpg https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/f6/2e/02/d1/VHitch4.jpg https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/d0/ec/fb/8e/VHitch5.jpg https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/cc/5e/c5/99/VHitch6.jpg [Alternate URLs] http://tinyurl.com/nuu4 http://tinyurl.com/nuue http://tinyurl.com/nuuj http://tinyurl.com/nuuu http://tinyurl.com/nuv0 http://tinyurl.com/nuv6
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