I recently tried CA glue for a very old Zimmerman upright with loose pins. It is the first time that I have used it for more than a pin or two. In this case, I tried to be fairly conservative. I tilted the piano, and because there were plate bushings, I slacked off the strings on the worst notes, removed the coils, and turned out the pins. For the very worst note I turned the pin all the way out, swabbed the hole with CA by putting some on a piece of hammer shank, put some more CA on the tuning pin sides, and turned it back in. It set up fairly quickly, but was a little bit jumpy. That seemed pretty laborious, so for the other 6 or seven notes (ca. 10-12 pins) I took off the coils, turned them about 1/2 way out, dripped CA glue on the sides, and turned them back in. I liked the results. Within a few minutes I could get them to hold, and they weren't jumpy like my first attempt. I returned to the piano a couple of weeks later, to put on a new bass string, and the notes were holding well. Pitch was a little low from being slacked off, but not much, and the pins felt good as I touched up the tuning. I'm wondering now if I could have done individual pins without tilting the piano, just removing the action, turning out the offending pin(s) halfway out, dripping the CA carefully so it coated the exposed threads without getting all over the place, and turning back in. It would surely save time and bother not to tilt the piano. As you can tell, I like CA for notes that truly need it, rather than a blanket approach. Lots less work, and seems effective. If I can develop a system that doesn't take a ton of labor, it could almost turn into "ongoing maintenance," getting done to individual pins as needed, possibly several years apart. Susan Kline
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