Plate Bushings - was Re: Bushing vs. bigger pin?

[Brian Trout]

Hi Richard,

Here goes another can of worms!!  <grin>  I didn't have the heart to bring
it up, but since you did...

I've heard the same things talked about briefly.

My own personal observations are that the tuning pin bushings tend towards
making a piano easier to tune because it eliminates a major part of the
flagpoling that happens with the pianos without them.  As far tuning
stability, I haven't really noticed that the pianos without the bushings
were so very much better than the ones with them.  If you've ever tuned a
piano without the tuning pin bushings that had tight tuning pins and poor
rendering, you might find yourself wishing that they had put in some tuning
pin bushings.  (I know I have...)

When I'm rebuilding one, if it had them, I put them back.  If it didn't have
them originally, I don't normally put them in.  Also, when drilling the
pinblock screw holes, I always place them towards the keyboard side of the
holes in the plate (pinblock is already fit to the flange) so that when the
screws are tightened, those screws are giving the pinblock a push into the
flange when they're being tightened.  It takes out any forward / aft slop
that there might be between the pinblock screws and the plate holes and
doesn't really give the pinblock anywhere to go.  (I hope I said that right.
It's hard to put into words.)

Another thing I've heard about, but never seen in person, are piano plates
that have two flanges, one on the front side of the pinblock, and one on the
back side of the pinblock.  I would think with a setup like that, you could
do pretty much anything you wanted to, and have very few people who would
want to argue with you.

Still one more factor might be the idea that many pinblocks are fastened
quite rigidly to the case / inner rim / stretcher of the piano, and might be
less likely to move in relation to the rest of the piano than one that is
not fastened to anything other than the plate web.  (For what it's worth, I
always do fasten a new pinblock into the case of the piano in as secure a
way as I feel I can, regardless of how it was (or wasn't) fastened
originally.)

As always, there's lots of factors involved, and many preconceived ideas.
Dang, this gets complicated, doesn't it???

Just had to add my two cents.

FWIW

Best wishes,

Brian Trout
Quarryville, PA
btrout@desupernet.net