Tuning a Kawai Grand RX-2, super tight pins, bent pins, and impact levers

Kendall Ross Bean kenbean at pacbell.net
Wed Jul 16 01:20:46 MDT 2008


Whoops! Sorry! Yes, I meant Andre Oorebeek! Thanks for correcting me! (I
guess I need to look more closely at who's writing the message in response
to whom. ;-).
 
Andrew Anderson wrote:
 
>Yes... but when they are brand-new out of the box for the first few  
>tunings there is a lot to grump about.  Barely moving a cent or so is  
>for fine tunings and you get there eventually but that is after the  
>foot of that torsionally willing pin finally gets close to where it  
>should be.
 
I agree with you there 100%. No way whatsoever to fine massage those pins
when the "feet" of the pins are as tight in the block as nails in 100-year
old 2" x 8"'s that have been baking in the attic...
...and when you also have to raise (or lower!) the pitch half a semitone
...forget about moving those pins anything but radically. My comment was for
pianos that are already pretty much in tune, and old enough, and stable
enough, to have become "tunable" (as far as pin torque).
 
Don't you hate those new pianos with super-tight pins? Not only are the new
strings stretching like crazy still, but the pins just don't cooperate at
all. Yeah, forget about tuning those in anything less than 2 hours. (Make
that 2 1/2, with the pitch raise....)
 
I've talked to tuners who were around when Baldwin first starting coming out
with those super tight pins in the new dense 41 ply multilam block. Some
seriously considered giving up tuning altogether at that point. When I have
unstrung those pianos I have often noted a lot of bent pins. I'm not sure if
it is from initial driving or from what the tuner subsequently had to do to
get the pin to move. (I've also been sorely tempted to put the same size pin
back in the block, rather than oversize, when restringing one of those.) In
my book, there is absolutely no reason for pins to be that tight.
 
By the way, we have found that bent tuning pins will also make it very hard,
if not impossible, to achieve stable unisons. It's often very difficult to
tell whether a pin has been bent though, without removing it from the block,
-so that is a possible cause of stability problems that is often hard to
detect.
 
If it's an upright/vertical you're tuning, I've heard that impact tuning
levers are real good for getting that tip/foot of the tuning pin down in the
block to move, without killing your arm with the "jerk" technique.
 
Anyone here have experience using an impact tuning lever on super tight
pins, and would like to comment? 
 
~Kendall Ross Bean
 
PianoFinders
www.pianofinders.com <http://www.pianofinders.com/> 
e-mail: kenbean at pianofinders.com
 
Connecting Pianos and People
 
 
>Uh,
>I believe that was Andre Oorebeek.

Andrew
>
>
>> Andrew Anderson also made some excellent points about hardly moving  
>> the pin
>> at all. I have noticed that does seem to help stability, a lot, for  
> >one,
>> because you are introducing less twist in the pin and less  
>> inequality among
>> the string segments. (If you have the technique to do it!) A tuner  
>> sent
>>along with the Steinway D from a professional piano rental company  
>> once
>> echoed the same sentiment to me: Move only the pins you need to, and >
those
>> as little as possible.

 
PianoFinders
www.pianofinders.com <http://www.pianofinders.com/> 
e-mail: kenbean at pianofinders.com
phone: (925) 676-3355
 
Connecting Pianos and People
 
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