grand hinge pins

[Farrell]

I do the same thing as a matter of routine - lift a tad, tug a little this way and that to be sure there is a connection there. I did this a week ago at a church with a small old microgrand. Lift a little tug a tad this ------------- whooooaaaa!!!!!! I just about fell backwards as the lid came with me! The forward hinge has a nail as a hinge pin, but the round hinge parts of the hinge actually had broken! While taking the lid off for hinge replacement, I noted that the rear hinge was pinned with a slender piece of steel wire. Yikes!

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Clyde Hollinger" <cedel@supernet.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 7:09 AM
Subject: Re: grand hinge pins


> 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.
> 
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