Restringing in the home

[Jon Page]

I am not a fan of doing this work in the field.

Examine the plate holes and tuning pins, if the pins are too close to the
backside of the holes, then the plate holes need to be elongated by drilling
with a bit which is the same size as the hole and angled so as to remove 
a little material from the back-bottom of the plate hole. This will insure
that
the pin will not contact the plate.  I would only dare this with the plate
removed.

That and travel time.

Jon Page



At 06:28 PM 5/13/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Thomas writes: 
>>I've been asked to restring a 1972 Hamburg Steinway "B" and a 1921 NY
>>Steinway "L" in the customer's home.
> oth have original tuning pins.
>>
>>Should I go up to a 4/0 pin, or will a 3/0 suffice? How do I make the
>>determination?
>
>  How much torque is in the pins?   You can try the top section in 3/0, and 
>if that is giving you at least 100 inch lbs.  you may go farther down. If
you 
>put a tuning hammer on the pins to chip some, you should decide on what kind 
>of feel you are getting. 
>    You will do well to avoid an overly tight block with oversized pins used 
>for "insurance".  This may even call for a reaming and THEN go to 4/0 pins, 
>but the mark of a well done job is evenness and sufficiency of torque
without 
>a lot of jumping pins and hammer-bending stiffness. 
>
>>I assume that damper felts will need to be replaced. Is this true? Cut
>>my
>>own, or precut from S&S?
>>The actions will need regulation; the hammers will need filing and voicing.
> 
>   How could it be cheaper to do this in the customers own home?  The
cartage 
>costs shouldn't be as much as the time you are going to spend away from your 
>bench, jigs, tools, etc, not to mention the dirt and dust.   I would suggest 
>that you make a pitch for doing these in the shop.
>Regards, 
>Ed Foote 
>  

Jon Page,  Harwich Port,  Cape Cod,  Mass.  mailto:jpage@capecod.net
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