Hi Mark, I did a bit of plugging many years ago. I was wary of 3/8", so I tried 7/16 (got a plug cutter and made my own). Results were disappointing. I am with Ron N on this. Think about it: what you end up with is a fairly thin veneer glued between the block and the pin. And the veneer is mostly end grain glued to end grain. How stable is that likely to be? With 1/2", you do have a chance, but I don't think it is really a viable/reliable fix. Judging by my experiences with plugging for stripped screw holes (log to lid, for instance), I find that you really need a lot of plug wood for the repair to last. Too little wood, and the screw just pulls out splinters, even of hard wood. For a small screw, I might get away with as small as 3/8", but even that is pushing it. Routing out and inserting a panel is the way to go, with those troublesome angled pinblocks and the like. Granted, if it is just a few pins, I'd likely experiment. But if I were pulling the plate, I'd think about routing out larger areas. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu On May 4, 2009, at 2:50 PM, Mark Cramer wrote: > Thanks David, > > This is valuable information. I’d wondered about boring from > underneath to get a good plug size. There are good portable right- > angled portable drills out there, but I worried about my ability to > drill a good hole free-hand. > > Fortunately this instrument is in the building, so we’ll have it > moved into the shop over summer, pull the plate and install about a > dozen ½” plugs. > > BTW, this piano has 2/0 pins that were feeling a bit loose over > winter, with about a dozen 4/0 mystery pins that gave up altogether. > So it’s likely an ideal candidate for spot-plugging, and I’m > relieved to know that you and several others have had success with > the ½” plugs. > > Thanks, > Mark C. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20090504/3fa14e41/attachment.html>
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