grand hinge pins

[Clyde Hollinger]

Dave,

I might have missed this, too, since the lid was already up.  If the
grand piano lid is down when I arrive, I always put it up to tune, just
to be able to mute the strings a little easier.  In the process I
routinely tug it this way and that a little when it is up only a couple
inches, just to make sure the hinge pins are there.  But as I said, in
your case with the lid already up, I could have been fooled, too.

Regards,
Clyde

Dave Nereson wrote:

>     Never assume the hinge pins on a grand lid are in place.  We do it
> all the time, and usually we're OK, but I almost lost a finger today.
> The lid was up when I got to the customer's home,  but I noticed it
> wobbled a bit when I removed the action to remove pencils, etc.  So I
> decided to tighten the hinge screws.  Lifted the lid up higher to get
> at the vertical screws that go into the rim when whisshht, whoosh,
> BAM! the thing came down on my hand -- hard !  I was afraid I had a
> broken finger or two, and one was bleeding.  I gingerly tried moving
> them and they were OK, but I know I'll be bruised for a week or
> so.      Well, the rear hinge was missing its pin.  How the lid stayed
> in the up position for the whole hour and a half I did a pitch raise
> and tuning, and removed and shoved the action back in twice, not to
> mention the weeks or months or year (?) it had been that way with
> little kids practicing on it, I don't know.