Lesson learned.....

[gordon stelter]

I thank you for the criticism, Susan, but my feeling
is this:

1) I don't want to come back and do this again, if I
have not used enough the first time. 
2)I do not want to try to explain to the customer that
it needs a second application, that may not work
either, and I need more money for this.
3) I believe there may be pianos where there IS no
"second chance": that once CA has been applied, it
creates barriers to the stuff getting into places it
needs to go, so a  second application would be futile.
 And then I'd REALLY have a hard time charging the
needed fee!

Nope. I put in as much as the piano accepts, without
being ridiculous. Usually about 4 ounces per piano.
Once it ceases to sink in the tuning poin holes 
( usually after the second pass ) I stop. I'll go back
over a few that are still absorbing, though.
     I tell  the customer that CA works 90% of the
time, sometimes very well, but that there are no
guarantees. I give it my best shot, and that's that.
I will leave the pins up to drive later, after the CA,
in an upright. But I might drive them first in a
grand, as inverting the piano and CA-ing from
underneath puts hard caps over the pins' ends. Another
reason to pre-tune.
    Peace,
     G 

--- Susan Kline <skline@peak.org> wrote:

> At 10:31 AM 9/23/2005 -0500, you wrote:
> >I use drop cloths now, always.
> 
> How about using LESS GLUE!?!??
> 
> This whole thread just shouts at me, "they are using
> too much!"
> Like pouring someone a cup of coffee, and you don't
> think you've done it
> right until the coffee slops over the saucer onto
> the tablecloth.
> 
> I know we're in the early stages of using CA glue,
> without a great deal
> of hard data as to the effects of more or less, and
> the timing of the
> application(s), but I get the strong feeling that
> less is better, and
> that two small applications is much better than one
> flooding. The first
> (small) application seals the tiny cracks, and the
> second re-lines the
> tuning pin holes. Well, that's how I account for
> what I observe.
> 
> The great blessing of CA for loose pins, it seems to
> me, is that by
> following small cracks, it improves the other loose
> pins in the area.
> Some of what we used to do, like tapping down a
> loose pin or using an
> oversized pin, made the neighbors worse. So, if
> using CA on a really
> bad pin, surrounded by sort of bad pins, will help
> them all to a certain
> extent, and will certainly prepare the area for more
> glue if it is
> needed later, by sealing some of the small cracks,
> why try to do it
> all at once?
> 
> It also sounds like people are flooding every single
> tuning pin as a
> standard practice. Maybe it's just our benign
> climate, but even the bad
> pinblocks I work on here (refugees from other
> places) have large sections
> where all the pins are tunable and okay, though not
> really snug.
> Why not just put the stuff where it is needed, and
> leave the rest alone?
> 
> So far, it's worked for me to not tilt the piano. I
> put some CA at the seam
> at the top of the tuning pin, wait a little, put a
> little more on. I use
> Loctite's little plastic bottle with the long narrow
> spout. It just lives
> in my kit. If CA starts to run down the plate, I sop
> it up with the corner
> of a shop towel. After a few minutes, I try to tune
> it. Once in awhile,
> I give it a little more, but most of the time it's
> tunable after ten
> minutes. On repeat visits, the old treated pins are
> okay, and I'll do a
> couple more if need be.
> 
> It's also a lot less time and fuss and mess to treat
> only the pins which
> won't hold. The job just slips into a normal tuning,
> like dusting off the
> innards, fixing a couple bobbling notes, bending a
> scraping bridle wire,
> etc. A few minutes as needed, and if one sees the
> piano on a regular
> basis, pretty soon loose pins aren't a problem with
> it. (in my experience 
> .. YMMV)
> 
> Susan 
> 
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> 



		
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