I've pasted below I post that I have sent to the list a few times detailing my advice for using CA. It works. You should also search the archives for lots of discussion on its use. Dean Dean May cell 812.239.3359 PianoRebuilders.com 812.235.5272 Terre Haute IN 47802 _____ From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Greg Livingston Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 10:51 AM To: Pianotech list Subject: [pianotech] Best Way To Fix Loose Pins? I'm asking this of my more experienced colleagues. A good customer and friend has a '30s Mason & Hamlin grand with a few really loose pins. At this time, she can't consider an overhaul, so what would be the best plan for me? -bigger pins? (wouldn't that spread cracks wider?) -bang the pins in deeper? (only adds a little more grabbing area) -sandpaper sleeve? (the least invasive, I think) -CA? (don't like it, since I spilled it once and glued my toolbox to the floor of my car; besides, I never liked Pintite) Your advice is gratefully appreciated. ___________________________________________________ Gregory P. Livingston, Piano Tuning and Service 781-237-9178 There has been much discussion on how to CA treat the tuning pins. You could search the archives and spend many hours. Here is a post I sent a couple of years ago. Hope it helps. Use thin glue. Don't use accelerator. You want the glue to soak into the wood with deep penetration. The accelerator would cause it to set prematurely. My theory is that the glue swells the wood and then sets up. When you give the pin its initial turn after treatment, you will find there is not much glue left in the joint to bond the pin to the wood. It snaps loose pretty easily. It is increased pressure from the pin block that tightens the pin and this is exactly what we want. Fill a hypo oiler with the glue which should be about 2 oz. Lay the piano on its back. Apply glue to base of pin very much like you would apply the old pin tightener. I squeeze the bottle for 1/2 to 3/4 of second at each pin. Go through all pins twice. You should end up with about 1/4 of the bottle left. Don't use more than one bottle. That would be overkill. It just doesn't take as much glue as you think it should. This glue has tremendous capillary action. Put a couple of drops on the end of a small dowel rod and watch it wick up the grain. The glue has such positive capillary action that you really don't even need to lay the piano down. (It is more convenient and a little safer to lay it down.) To apply vertically, just put the tip of the hypo oiler at the top of the pin at the base and squeeze out a little glue. The trick is to stop squeezing before the glue starts running down the plate. Have some Q-tips handy to mop up any excess that does run down the plate, or it will go on down the strings onto the damper felt. Ask me how I know. You should lay the piano down if you have time. But there have been unusual circumstances where I wanted to fix the piano without charging the customer full price. A most recent one was a customer who had already paid for a regular pin treatment several years ago. The pin treatment wasn't holding up very well (it had already been treated several times before me) so I put the glue on. They had already paid me for a pin treatment (Pin-Tite, not CA) to solve the problem several years ago. Plus, they were a regular customer so I wanted to "warranty" my work, even though there was not an express warranty given (in fact, with the Pin-Tite treatments I used to always expressly indicate that there was NO warranty that it would work). Since I wasn't getting paid and didn't have much time, I didn't lay it down. It still worked great, and this was a pretty pervasive case of rotten pin block. If you are doing a grand be sure to put newspaper between the pin block and the action, though I've never had any glue make it to the newspaper like I have with regular Pin-Tite. You could also remove the action, flip the piano upside down and apply the glue to the bottom of the hole. But that really isn't necessary. Let it sit for about 20 minutes. When you use that much glue without accelerator it takes awhile to cure. 20 minutes usually gives enough time for the pins to be tight enough to hold, but you really don't need to wait. If a pin isn't tight enough to hold, just go on and tune the others. It will be tight enough when you are done with the rest of the piano. I have found them to be even tighter after several days. I have had one or two problem pins that didn't tighten enough. I removed them, squirted glue directly into the hole and immediately re-inserted the pin. Worked beautifully. I charge the equivalent of about 3 tunings for this 30 minute procedure and give it an 8 year warranty, and I'm thinking about raising my price another $50. The 8 year warranty is a value added service that justifies the expense and really sells it for the customer. Every customer who has purchased this work has been very happy about the price. I just did one yesterday for a church. They are thrilled. They still know that the piano needs rebuilt or replaced. They just don't have the money to do that, but they do have $200-300 to pay for a guarantee that they can make it 8 more years with the piano they have. Remember they aren't paying for the 30 minute service; they are paying for the value added guarantee. And you are saving them thousands of dollars to get them through 8 more years. I personally haven't been treating pins this way for more than 4 years. But other techs I've talked to have ten plus years experience with it and they indicate it still works very well. Worst case scenario is that you might have a piano with 3-4 very problem child pins. If that happens, pull out last resort tricks: pull pin and squirt glue in hole, use oversize pins, use fiberglass resin, or very last resort, drill it out and plug it. Very worst case scenario I could refund their money. But generally I could nurse any piano along for a few more years even before I had the CA glue trick. Now I am even more confident that I can get them through another 8 years with the CA glue. As I've said before, I like Kwick Kleen (www.kwickkleen.com) brand of CA. It is always fresh. You can call to order with a credit card at (888) 222-9767. I'd recommend a half dozen bottles of thin, one bottle of medium and an 8 oz bottle of accelerator for a start up order. And be sure to get a dozen hypo oilers from Schaff. Some guys like to use syringes. I like hypo oilers. Whatever you use, the tips will plug eventually, so get plenty of them. I peel the label off an empty glue bottle and put it on the hypo oiler so I know what is in there (doesn't everyone have a dozen hypos on their bench with various unknown fluids in them?). When the tip plugs I just change tips and throw the new hypo bottle away. Wish I could buy just the tips somewhere. Dean May _______________________________________________ pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090128/cd68d041/attachment-0001.html>
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