[pianotech] Oversized tuning pins

[erwinspiano at aol.com]

 Rob
  it's a pain but it works and gets my vote. 
 Dale




s I'm still a newbie, I feel somewhat uncomfortable using a zapper.  I'm also 
ot keen on attempting to use David Doremus' great idea of loosening the 
ension, remove the becket, back the pins out with a drill, becket back in, and 
e-set the pin.  I think it's a great idea, but I'm just not at that level yet.
Thanks,
Rob McCall
cCall Piano Service, LLC
urrieta, CA
rob at mccallpiano.com
ww.mccallpiano.com
51-698-1875

On Nov 27, 2009, at 18:55 , David Love wrote:
> 
 Those are the kinds of jobs I am moved to return to the person who did the
 ace restringing job.  Unfortunately, once a nightmare, always a nightmare.
 It won't likely loosen up and won't get much better, at least not in your
 lifetime.  If it were me, I wouldn't be encouraging them to tune it that
 often.  At least not if they are going to call me.  Maybe a zapper, but
 you'll have to explain the smoke.  
 
 David Love
 www.davidlovepianos.com
 
 
 -----Original Message-----
 From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
 Of Rob McCall
 Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 6:10 PM
 To: pianotech at ptg.org
 Subject: [pianotech] Oversized tuning pins
 
 Greetings all,
 
 I tuned a 1957 Hensel 5' Grand that had been restrung by someone else this
 past June.  My tuning was the first one since the restringing. No other work
 was performed besides new strings and tuning pins.
 
 The pin block is still the old one but on the invoice the customer showed
 me, they had put in new oversized pins, although the size they used was not
 listed.
 
 Tuning was, at least for me, a nightmare...!  I was gently pulling on the
 first tuning pin to get a feel for it, but it wouldn't budge. I gave it a
 short impact type pull and it jumped about 30 cents and made a high pitched
 ratcheting type noise that resonated through the piano. Luckily, it was
 about 40 cents flat to begin with!  It felt like it jumped in increments
 throughout a very short movement.
 
 Every single tuning pin was extremely tight and would not move in small
 increments no matter how hard I tried. I finally figured out just the right
 amount of impact to get it to move close to where I wanted it, as they all
 needed about the same amount of movements, but small movements were
 impossible.  This ratcheting type feeling and loud sound was the same in
 both CW and CCW movement on every single pin, every single time it was
 moved.
 
 At least it had 3 tight coils and the beckets were all lined up...  :-)
 
 Needless to say, it wasn't my best tuning, but I explained (and
 demonstrated) to the client what was going on, and in the end, he seemed
 genuinely pleased with the end result.
 
 My question...  Is there something that can be done to make the tuning pins
 move easier and smoother? Or does this just need lots of movement and time?
 Anything else I can do?  
...=

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091129/ee8af84c/attachment.htm>