[pianotech] Beckets

[Ron Nossaman]

Jude Reveley (Absolute Piano) wrote:
>    Fair enough, EXCEPT there is the occasional situation in the low 
> tenor and bass where the agraffe to tuning pin string length is so short 
> that you either
> need an especially high front bearing (making it even more difficult to 
> thread the wire up and over), more than less coils (my late entrance to 
> this thread) a shorter pin height than the neighbors, or a negative pin 
> angle to allow the last winding to be tight up against the rest.

And how about those old Wurlitzer verticals that have such a 
high front (top) bearing that you need to either lean the pin 
back 30°, or wind coils on the pin upside down to keep the 
string from climbing the coils? I doubt that there exists a 
concept that doesn't have an aberrant example of the opposite 
in a production piano out there somewhere. My point still is 
that there doesn't seem to be any real reason for putting 
three coils on a pin.


>    As for pin depth, it is my experience that the deeper the pin the 
> greater the torque.  I would be interested to hear others' experience 
> with this. 

My experience is to switch to a better working pinblock that 
isn't so touchy (which I have, and it isn't), and choose a 
drill size and pin length that's appropriate to what I want to 
end up with. I thought that's why pins come in different 
lengths, so we can choose what we want.


>Perhaps my perception was simply comparing "flag pole range" 
> to "non-flag pole range."
> 
>    Jude

Two pins, four coils on one, and 1-1/2 coils on the other, are 
driven in to leave the string coming off the bottom of the 
coil the same height on each. They have identical lengths of 
pin between the block and the string, so there's no flagpole 
range difference concerning the string. Concerning the feel at 
the tuning hammer, the one with the 1-1/2 turn coil would be 
firmer feeling than the one with 4 turns, assuming any 
difference could be felt.

Which still doesn't provide a rational answer as to why three 
turns is so important instead of some other equally functional 
number.
Ron N