I precut the lengths. Bend the wire in half. Use a round nose pliers to put the hitch pin bend to get it fairly sharp. Put the wire on the hitch (use a small spring clamp on the hitch if necessary to keep the wire from popping off, connect through the bridge pins, through the agraffe (if applicable). Slip the measuring tubing over the end of the wire. Grab the wire with the cutters and pull taut sliding the measuring tubing down to the reference point in the plate hole (whatever point you choose: center, front, back). The tubing allows you to squeeze the wire so that it won't slide when you let go with the pliers. Slide the cutters down to the end of tubing and cut flush. As you progress down through the scale you will get a bit more stretch at the longer tenor wire so you can gradually move your reference point on the tuning pin hole in the plate as you progress down the scale to compensate. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Cy Shuster Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 7:29 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Tuning pin height What tips do you have for getting the slack out from hitch pin to tuning pin as you string? That's been my biggest problem in consistency. One poster mentioned not threading the new wire through the bridge pins before cutting, for example. There is a beauty to quick, fluid, highly-skilled work. I've seen two people, well-practiced, string a grand together in half an hour, one at the tail, one doing pins. With a steady rhythm, and being "in the flow", the work comes out smoothly, with a polished look. Neatly aligned beckets may be an intentional target, or might be an incidental result of work done quickly and well like this, but I do love highly-practiced teamwork (like jibing a spinnaker on a race boat). I have to admit that I do prefer it when the pin angles are consistent with tuning. If I can start with my lever at 12:00, and then get gradually forced around to an awkward 3:00 before I can grab another bite, that's uncomfortable. So, how do you keep slack wire from throwing the cutting measurement off? One person at the tail taking up slack from first pin to hitch pin, and then you pull straight from there to where you're cutting? --Cy-- Cy Shuster, RPT Albuquerque, NM www.shusterpiano.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091005/c2bb7d77/attachment.htm>
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