2cts worth....it is possible to break the pin off. Years ago at Berklee Performance Center (Boston) we had a Yamaha CFIII that was had been restrung by a guy who was paranoid about having the tightest possible pins on his rebuilds. It was nearly impossible to tune. My gig at the time was concert tuning there at least every week, and eventually I sheared off 2 pins just before a concert. I managed to mute off the offenders to get through the night. The rebuilder came back to verify, and sheared off another pin by himself. So, he had to come back and repin the whole piano as part of his contract. The procedure worked out to be removing the pins, and repinning with the same size, as the act of turning them out and pounding in a new one eased the holes just enough to have a nice tight but tunable fit. I think he sheared off several more in the process as well. I don't remember other details, such as drill bit size used, or pinblock material. Seems to me it was Delignit because it was late 80's and that seemed to be the block material du jour at the time. Another thought....tuning technique could factor in. Some people 'bump' the lever, which might mean they get too aggressive trying to move a stubborn pin. Others pull / push with a combination of fingers and thumb grip (my preferred method, most of the time, but you adjust according to the feel of the block, IMHO). It shouldn't matter though, if a pin is so tight that the act of tuning it shears it off, its too much torque. Might be smart to invest in a torque wrench and track what you are experiencing. CYA -- Best Regards, Brad Smith, RPT www.SmithPiano.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090127/61ff3cb9/attachment-0001.html>
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