<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jul 24, 2008, at 6:48 PM, Paul T Williams wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><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; "><br><font size="2" face="sans-serif">Fred,</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br><br><font size="2" face="sans-serif">Can you do this two times? Just trying to save a buck on practice rooms....</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br><br><font size="2" face="sans-serif">It makes a lot of sense to do this one time, but have you experimented twice with the same pins given good torque? Now with the old pins, are you concerned at all with the appearance of the new job? Restringing looks nice, but if the older pins are dingy or even rusty looking, do you proceed with this? I've not been here long enough to see, so I'm interested in what you've seen in your years. Of course, practice rooms are not the best looking of beasts, but it still is important to keep them looking somewhat decent. </font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br><br><font size="2" face="sans-serif">What say you?</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br><br><font size="2" face="sans-serif">Paul</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></blockquote></div>Hi Paul,<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>No reason you can't do this multiple times (if the pins are still tight enough to tune and hold), as long as you take care in your process so that the pins don't descend too far into the block (ie, you back out each pin an appropriate amount to account for the "forward" turning you are going to do after attaching the new coil to the pin). Have I done a second time? Not yet, haven't been through them all once yet. But I'll get there before I retire <G>.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I am lucky enough to live in a dry climate, and pins and strings don't rust as much as they do for many of you. But, that said, I don't really worry too much about cosmetics, beyond cleaning the best I can. I'm more of a function guy than an appearance guy. Appearance matters, as a lot of people will look at a dinged case and have an automatic negative reaction. But then they sit down, and if the piano plays much better than the brand new one, they tend to get over their prejudices in the course of time. I do aim for clean as much as practical. I can't say that having bright shining tuning pins would be much of a priority. More important to make the raw wood scratches in the case black again, and have a nice looking hammer line of beautifully shaped hammers.<br><div><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">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></div><br><div></div></div></div></body></html>