Hi Gene, Never had any bushings split on me. I always fit and attach the block to the plate first. Then drive the bushings into the plate before drilling. I don’t drill by hand. I cut the post of an extended throat drill press to accommodate a plate that is on an upright tilter. Clamp the drill press to a piano dolly at a 30 degree angle. I can move from hole to hole making sure I line up with the angle of the string for which I’m drilling. Drill through the bushing and the block at the same time. I use 3-4 “jobber” bits from Pianotek that correspond with the pins I’m using. I have to let the bit cool every few minutes but that ensures uniform hole size. It usually takes me about 1 ½ hours to drill all the holes. Very efficient. Always had uniform pin torque. It is a bit involved to get it set up initially but once you have it, works like a charm everytime. 36 pianos and counting. No split bushings. The drill press cost me about $225. It can be found here: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=44846 The great thing is that it doesn’t matter what size pin you are using. It always works, whether you coil the strings around the pins and then drive in or if you drive in a little bit then string the piano. Because you drill the hole in the bushing matching the hole in the pinblock. Anthony Smith Phoenix, AZ -----Original Message----- From: Gene Nelson [mailto:nelsong at intune88.com] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 2:00 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: [pianotech] those pesky tuning pin bushings Hello list, Does anyone have a technique to prevent most of the tuning pin bushings from splitting? I drilled the block outside of the piano, not a thought about bushings. The way that I string, I coil the string round the pin and punch it into the hole with the bushing in place. Splits every time. The bushing hole diameters are all .250 but the 2.0 tuning pin is oversize by .031 Drilling the bushings to match the tuning pins is tedious and still about 50% will split. What am I missing? Thanks for any help. Gene -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20081205/cc314929/attachment-0001.html> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 3025 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20081205/cc314929/attachment-0001.jpe>
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