Bent Tuning Pins

[Ron Nossaman]

>Hi List,
>I just removed the pins in a piano, in preparation for a restringing.
>The majority of the old pins were bent, some were quite bad.
>Is this because, a tuner was bending the pins, to fine tune? I seem to
>remember someone saying they bent the pin a bit.
>Regards,
>John M. Ross

Could be either the stringer, or a tuner. Locally, I find visibly bent 
tuning pins (lots of them) in pianos of different make with the name of one 
particular tuner inside. I don't know what this guy does, but he actually, 
sometimes severely, bends tuning pins just in the tuning process. 
Springing, or flagpoling a pin a little to find the string equilibrium 
point is normal. Bending the pin past it's plastic deformation limit is 
severely abnormal.

Ron N