One of my least favorite shop jobs is pulling tuning pins. Sure, it's not that bad with an air impact tool, but it's still a pain. Consequently, I often pull the plate with the pins, or most of them, still in the block. The block I pulled last week wasn't the original, and had nice nickel plated pins that had threads that were nearly non existent. They'd spin, but wouldn't walk out of the block more than half way, so removing the set was even less attractive than usual. Sometimes, the plate will come out past the full set of pins, other times not. Removing either the top or bottom section sometimes works when it doesn't with the full set. I'm not entirely sure why, but I take what I can get. I typically cut the becket and pull the coils off either way, to minimize personal blood loss. Techs occasionally express surprise that this is possible when I mention it (pulling a plate past the pins, not minimizing personal blood loss), or they see a pinned block in the corner of my shop and ask, but unless you just whiz the pins out and let the strings go where they may, you might want to give it a look. With newer Baldwins, after preferably lowering string tension, you can pull the plate, block, and strings as a unit. Then the quickest tear down seems to be to cut the strings, and drive the pins out with a punch from the bottom. I save takeout Baldwin blocks for jig tooling stock, for which the material is much better suited than holding tuning pins in pianos. For what it's worth... P.S. Note that fine 7° angle on those pins Ron N -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Baldwin SD-10-B block.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 53496 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20080518/4aaaba5d/attachment-0002.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Steinway D block.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 47130 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20080518/4aaaba5d/attachment-0003.jpg
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