<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>On Jul 7, 2008, at 2:58 PM, Kendall Ross Bean wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><br></font><div><span class="909222614-07072008"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><span class="533392320-07072008"></span></font></font></span> </div><div><span class="909222614-07072008"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><span class="533392320-07072008">I would love to see a discussion by parties hopefully much more knowledgeable than myself, about why these silly pins are the way they are today.</span></font></font></span></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><span class="909222614-07072008"></span></font> </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Hi Kendall,<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I don't know how knowledgeable I am on this subject, but I think the answer to most of your questions can be probably summarized in two words: aesthetics and salesmanship. A similar example is key bushing cloth, which we all "know" should be white inside. Maybe at some point there was a reason (eg, the dye didn't penetrate during the processing - only when the felt was of sufficient density), but now they go to some trouble to meet the expectation. It is starting to change: Steinway now has white key bushing cloth (very recent - probably EU green regulations or PR, as it initiated in Hamburg). I think the hype about "bluing" is very similar, and done to try to sell more pins to gullible technicians. That's my own skeptical opinion, based on what experience I have. But maybe someone else with more varied experience can tell us why one kind of bluing is better than another, and why bluing is better than its absence. </div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I think that the real difference in tuning pins (available stock - all being strong enough to stand the torque of being turned while tuning) is manufacturing tolerances. Are they round within .001"? Are all the pins in a set within .001" of one another? If so, you've got a good set. The pinblock will make much more difference: material? number and direction of plies? glue? drill bit used? control of drilling speed? to name some of many of the factors that go into determining if pins hold well and turn well.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Threads are for pin removal. They also add to the surface area, so they impact the friction with the block. Smooth pins work okay in harpsichords. I don't know if the extra torque of pianos would change that. But I wouldn't want to experiment, since I want the pins to be removable. "Reverse thread" is generally accepted as hogwash salesman claim. It is probably a side-effect of the method of cutting threads, where some filings are laid down with a direction. I don't think it actually wears out a block, though I can see where that opinion would come from. I think the amount of cutting done in a tuning pin hole would be limited rapidly by being clogged by wood fiber. In any case, I don't think pianos with such pins have a unique behavior I can identify, though really one would have to follow a piano through a period of years to come to a conclusion, and I haven't done that (not with conscious intent, knowing what I had to begin with and observing to see what happened over time).</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Tapered is, I think, a vestige of times when blocks were solid, and drilling tolerances not that tight. To work really well, you need tapered drill bits to drill holes with the same taper as the pin. The experience I have with tapered pins is in harpsichords. A lot of them, the pins aren't truly tapered, they are cylindrical to the bottom couple centimeters, then that lowest portion is tapered pretty acutely. Not a very good design in my experience. They are often hard to remove, and don't really get much tighter driving them in further. I have only very limited experience with truly tapered pins, and I don't know if the holes were drilled tapered. In any case, I don't the the possible gains outweigh the extra expense.<br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Regards,</div><div>Fred Sturm</div><div>University of New Mexico</div><div><a href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">fssturm@unm.edu</a></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br><div><div><br></div></div></div></body></html>