THE PIANO: A donated no name baby grand, years ago extremely heavily doped with Garfield's ( pools of brown sticky stuff that has hardened), - no pin bushings, most pins would need vast improvement to come up to zero pin torque. ( You know, - they jump 5 notes flat when you release the tuning hammer) THE SITUATION: Little old ladies club, their big yearly scholarship fundraising event is in 5 days with a "singing group" coming in do a program, "PLEASE - PLEASE, do what you can." My work basically pro-bono. (I occasionally do some.) THE PLAN: A great piano to experiment with! What's to lose? I intend to try putting CA glue (thin- medium- thick ?) into the pin wells where the bushings should have been, letting it set up and then tuning. The piano was previously tapped about as far as it can go. I will remove the action and shield the key bed, etc. It would be very difficult to turn this piano over to treat the bottom of the pinblock due to its location and my feeble back. REQUESTING YOUR HELP: I wish I knew this was coming up, for I would try water thin epoxy, but no time to get that now. I would like to know how thick the CA should be, how many grams or ounces might be needed, waiting times, - ANYTHING that would help. Also, IS THIS LIKELY TO WORK? - I will report to the list, because if CA works in this piano it should work anywhere. Is the CA likely to work as well as an epoxy treatment? For this much CA glue the fumes will be awesome. Anything to do there besides ventilation? Should I drop a drop of water into the holes after the CA glue? - What about accelerators? Please feel free to e-mail me directly, but I will be anxiously watching the list. If it doesn't work right away I would still have time to burn down the building and save the ladies from grievous embarrassment. Thanks, Bill Simon Phoenix
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC