Soap damaged pinblocks?

[Joel Rappaport]

Carol Beigel wrote:
>         I hope this question has not been posed before.  If so please
> direct me to where!  I encountered a Steinway L, serial #474??? (circa
> 1981) that has a few loose tuning pins in the bass.  What makes these > pins special, is that they are near the plate screws that hold the > pinblock to the plate.

Carol,
I have run into the same thing before on new L's and B's.  And perhaps
others have experienced it in other models and other makes.  I would
suggest two possibilites:

1)  It is not necessarily soap, paraffin or (less likely) beeswax
_seeping_ into the screw holes, but accidentally dropped directly into
the hole.  This is when the tuning pin holes are drilled before the
plate and block are screwed together.  I'm sure it comes as no surprise
to most on this List that factory workers are paid by piecework and
pianos DO get worked on during that Friday afternoon when thoughts of
the weekend in a mountain cabin creep into the picture.  There is not
much of a cure for this, short of plugs or a new pinblock.

Horace Greeley wrote:
> My personal practice is not to use anything.  There are simply too many
> variables over which we have no control, so I work to try to control
> the things which make sense.

  With the greatest respect to Horace nd his experience, I certainly
want some lubricant when, for the first time, I am inserting a screw
into a piece of hardwood.  This saves "boogered up" screw heads and
scratched plate finishes.

Second possibility which I have experienced is that the drill bit was
fed into the block too quickly (see above note about piecework in the
factory).  If this was the cause, an oversized pin would solve the
situation with no later problems.  Let's hope this was it.

Joel Rappaport
Round Rock, Texas