Well I appreciate having the charge of being unethical withdrawn. ;-) On the subject of pins loosening with frequent tuning. I think the problem is poor wood selection in the pinblock. Some pinblocks stand up very well to repeated tunings. Others do not. I've noticed for example that Story and Clark studio pianos seem to quickly turn to mush. Repinning with oversize will work for about 5-8 years then they start getting loose again. Now I use CA glue which seems to work better. Extremely hard blocks also seem to not hold up well to frequent tunings. When the wood is so hard the pin cannot be fitted with as much interference as with on a softer block. Less interference (i.e., larger hole drilled)means there is less tolerance for variation of hole sizes in drilling, and less tolerance of variations of tuning pin sizes. This adds up to less tolerance for wearing of the wood with frequent tunings. Just my intuitive analysis. I've done experiments with cabinet makers plywood, very strong and lots of laminations. But it is entirely unsuitable for a pin block. Just a few turns of a tuning pin and the torque quickly evaporates. Anyway it just affirmed to me that the quality of the block is critical for frequent tuning. Others on the list are eminently more qualified than I to judge what varieties and grain selections constitute a quality and long wearing block. Dean Dean May cell 812.239.3359 PianoRebuilders.com 812.235.5272 Terre Haute IN 47802 -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of timothy ehlen Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 12:33 PM To: Pianotech List Subject: RE: frequent tuning - floating pitch? was tuning Interesting ideas that I hadn't considered. Although I have not encountered this kind of difficulty with pitch fluctuation on my own pianos, both new and re-built (despite living in Cleveland and now Illinois for quite a few years now), I can appreciate the perspective of technicians with more experienceand your experience dealing with fluctuating climates. I agree that in cases where pitch tends to fluctuate in a problematic way, stability would be a higher priority than tuning to A440. I've never really considered this, however...I always thought a piano was "in tune" if it was at 440 and the notion of "pitch correction" seems to be another way of saying "tuning." (I tend to think of the "pitch raise" as the result of years of failing to have the piano tuned, in which case an extra charge seems reasonable. I know I won't get much support for this notion on this list though:) I would assume that pianos naturally fall a bit flat over time, but if they are really swinging this far sharp during the summers, then that's another matter altogether, I suppose. Based on your responses, I would modify my previous view that it is not ethical to leave a piano at anything other than A440, although I still hope this is the norm in most cases. About my suggestion of pinblock wear, this was the only possible problem that I could think of with very frequent tunings, based on the loosness of some pins on concert grands that I've encountered, including my own CD. I would assume that a re-stringing would need to be done earlier on these instruments that have regularly been tuned weekly or even daily, comparing with the normal grand that gets 2-4 tunings per year. Tim _______________________________________________ Pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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