[pianotech] Re-pinning

[William Monroe]

Hi Paul,

1.)  By all means, replace at least a section at a time.  Just be sure to
keep the wires in order.  Take down the tension, remove the beckets, and zip
the pins out with a power drill or impact wrench.  Removing them quickly
creates less heat in the block than slowly, unless you go extremely slowly -
too much time for me.

2.)  I wouldn't bother in this case.  Check to be sure what size pin you are
pulling.  If 2's, you could set up and drill out for 4's for best
consistency, or just pull the 2's and pound in 3's would probably work.
 You'll want to check torque of course before you get carried away, and make
sure your results will be workable, which ever way you go.

3.)  As above.

4.)  10 hours?  or, maybe two days in the shop.

5.)  Yes, it is worth it.  Repin.  No bones.

William R. Monroe



On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 1:14 PM, paul bruesch <paul at bruesch.net> wrote:

> I have a customer with a quite new (3-4 years old) Schimmel K120, a nice
> ~47" Studio. Nice, except that virtually all the tuning pins are barely
> tight enough to hold pitch, which of course makes it unpleasant to tune.
>
> I am in contact with Schimmel about this. They want to send me a set of
> oversize pins. I suppose anything would be an improvement, but I have a few
> apprehensions/questions/concerns...
>
> (1) I've never re-strung, nor re-pinned, an entire piano. I have replaced
> single pins here and there, and a dozen or two on an instrument (an S&S "B"
> that should have been getting rebuilt instead). On the dozen-or-two piano, I
> had a heck of a time tuning up to pitch when I replaced both pins of one
> wire. Should I replace one at a time? i.e. pull one pin, (ream/chase... see
> #2,) replace with new, pull up to pitch, pull other pin, lather rinse
> repeat? Seems like an incredible amount of tool-changing.
>
> (2) There's been much discussion on this list about reaming (chasing) for
> new pins on a restringing job, and about PDF/resin for driving the new pins.
> Any opinions as far as either of these topics for repinning a nearly-new
> piano?
>
> (3) For removing the old pins, would backing them out with a power drill
> generate too much heat? The alternative, manually backing out 200+ pins,
> seems like an incredible time suck.
>
> (4) How much time should I plan on, particularly given this is my first
> experience??
>
> (5) Would the results be significantly better than CA'ing the block, and
> worth the effort? I do think that CA'ing a nearly new block sounds like a
> sacrilege!
>
> I do have a tilter which I would think I definitely want to use.
>
> Thanks much,
> Paul Bruesch
> Stillwater, MN
>
>
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