Happy New Year to all! While in Banff earlier this month, I made an experiment Id wanted to try for some time, comparing the relative penetration of epoxy and CA glue in treating loose bridge-pins. In brief, I installed about a dozen bridge-pins into sample stock, then twisted them out and re-installed them to loosen the fit. I applied CA to ½ of them, and epoxy to the rest, with some black dye added, as a tracer. Note: The epoxy was West System, and I heated the bridge-pins with a soldering iron (a tip from Joe Garrett thats stood the test of time) to help the epoxy penetrate. The next day I removed the bridge pins and ripped the stock through the hole-centers to check the results. All pins were now extremely tight! Overall, both products penetrated the holes to a depth of a1/4 or more, which by Ron Nossamans good advice, should be plenty. Both products also seemed to fill the void well, leaving a precise half-mold of the bridge-pin, that is, when the material hadnt pulled away with the actual pin. I noticed a little difference in the two resins however; the epoxy was a solid opaque deposit, while the CA was more cellular, sometimes with tiny voids or bubbles between. If youve used these products however, you will already be familiar with these characteristics, and neither seems to suffer in holding ability as a result. (Secretly, I had been cheering for the epoxy, on the presumption that the thickness of the resin (once it cooled) would make a better gap-filler in the long term.) I used a 20X jewelers loop to examine, and no, I didnt take photos. In terms of application, the CA was the winner. Using a syringe, its possible to mete out thin CA very precisely; watching it disappear around the pin, then adding more. If you overdo it a bit, it can easily be drawn back into the syringe, leaving a very tidy, clean surface. (Weve frequently taken advantage of this property to treat bridge-pins with strings in place) The epoxy however, seemed to leave a small collar around the base of the pin. With practice, I was able to get the collar small enough that it wouldnt contact my test-string (#16 wire), however, I dont know if I would have the courage to apply epoxy with strings in place. In conclusion, this wasnt a very scientific experiment, but it was about all I had time for, and it answered my questions just fine. As a result, we will continue to use thin CA to treat loose bridge-pins, with strings in place. The application is easy, the results (correcting false beats) have been good, and now we know the glue is making it well below the bridge surface. BTW, I still believe its better to saturate one pin at-a-time, then doing a whole section in a series of passes, at a risk of sealing the hole on the first pass. For re-pinning a bridge, weve been using Bill Spurlocks epoxy method (PT Journal, March 1992) for over a decade and will not change a thing. Joe Garretts method however, is still the best I can think of when you have to re-use a bridge-cap that needs some reconditioning, especially when they start to get tiny splits and visible voids. Now heres a challenge Ive perhaps thrown down before: If youve never tried to deal with false beats, (or are holding to some noble albeit untested notions ;>) why not treat yourself to a rewarding little experiment? The next time youre tuning an old practice-room grand and encounter a false beat, isolate the string (by muting the other two) then gently rest a screwdriver on the forward bridge pin and see whether the false beat stops. If so, you have a candidate. If you want to experiment with the string in place (and why not youre the same person who has to fix it :>), test your syringe technique outside the piano first, then carefully apply CA to the base of the pin, on the non-string side. Apply drop-by-drop, wait and watch, then continue until the pin wont take anymore. Withdraw any excess glue with the syringe. I would actually wait awhile before tuning, as we dont know how long the glue takes to cure below the surface, however you can likely go back in an hour or so and simply listen to the results. As mentioned earlier, weve been using this method for several years, with good success. Best wishes, Mark Cramer, Brandon University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20071231/9d6e9c57/attachment.html
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC