[pianotech] Oversized tuning pins

[David Love]

I find the best approach is to simply run a drill through that's the
appropriate size for the new diameter pin you are going to use.  That way
you don't have to wonder whether to go up one size or two sizes and you get
some fresh wood against the new tunings pins.  Also, now pins come in half
sizes so you can take the minimal amount of material and target the smallest
change necessary or use the lo-torque pins or both.

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com

  

>The irony is that there are places and conditions where going up 2 sizes 
>is pretty much standard procedure. All the years that I lived and worked 
>in Boston, that's what we did whenever restringing a piano without 
>replacing the pinblock. The climate there and the prevalence of 
>forced-air heating in New England homes beat those pinblocks up so badly 
>that if you only went up one size, you would have loose tuning pins 
>within a year or two of restringing (if not sooner). Now that I am 
>living and working in Northern California, often the block is still 
>perfectly fine when the strings are shot (as often happens in pianos 
>that live close to the ocean or in  the fog belt). Even going up one 
>size can often result in overly tight tuning pins. So one size increase 
>is the maximum I dare do here - and often enough restringing with the 
>old pins (using a dummy pin for making coils) yields perfectly fine 
>tuning pin torque.

>The point is that one should not blindly follow some set procedure, but 
>assess the conditions and  determine tuning pin size accordingly.

>Israel Stein