Pin Dope And Hot Stuff

[PIANOBIZ@aol.com]

  I saw the piano about 3 years  and 3 tunings
later and the pins had come loose.  Based on this experience I don't know if
this would be a repair that I would recommend.

Any others with this area of experience.

Mike Swendsen
swendsec@cadvision.com

Mike
I haven't followed a piano with this application for three years, probably
two years tops. No problems as of yet.  I should make clear that I only
reluctantly advocate applying super glue to a loose pinblock.  I'd much
rather close the fallboard and schedule the piano for pick-up and a rebuild.
True, the super glue has worked for me, but I recommend it as one recommends
a tourniquet to stop bleeding.  This is reserved for soon-to-be dead
pianos... piano fatalities, so to speak.

I'll share a story, from just this week to illustrate how I use super glue.
 The piano had been restrung elsewhere out of state, with 6/0 oversized pins
only five years ago.  I tuned it and got a call within a week that the tuning
wasn't holding.  I went back to the home and showed the lady that the notes
in question were the ones I had chalked during the tuning as very loose.  I
promised her I'd mail her a proposal to install a new pinblock, and before I
left, squirted some red label super glue beside those pins.  Her son couldn't
even play his songs it sounded so bad.  There's a usage in context. I try to
couple the application with a preparation for further work.

My experience with turning the piano upside down to get super glue into the
bottom side of the pinblock hole was disappointing also. I did try it once
and I had high hopes, but the super glue traveled into the end grain of the
side of the hole before it seeped down beside the tuning pins.  So, even
though I thought it was doing a lot, because the glue was disappearing, it
really wasn't.  I also don't like this because,..... it is very scary to
think that there may be some unhardened super glue awaiting you as you turn
the piano back over. Yeeeeooowww! I hate it when that happens.

But think about this, even if, worst case scenario, one application does get
only three extra years, many customers would still say, OK lets try it?  It
might give the customer time to save, time to adjust to the concept of
rebuilding and eventually, when the next failure occurs, realize that a
rebuild to your shop is in order.  Sometimes people appreciate you doing
something if they can't afford the rebuild at that time.

David Sanderson
Littleton, MA
Pianobiz@aol.com