Bridge Pin Drilling

[Mark Story]

Terry,


I agree with Dale that you should cap the bridge. Besides restoring the
bridge pins to their proper location you can also fix the likely original
problem, that of having insufficient down bearing. Even a less-than-perfect
new cap of the correct thickness would be better that the best epoxy job. If
you have capped a bridge before, you know that it wouldn't take all that
much longer than the epoxy procedures posted here. If you haven't why not do
your first cap job for the same price as the epoxy job, and eat the extra
time as learning time. I did this with my first soundboard replacement. When
the piano (tiny no-name grand) came in, it was for a shim job, but we found
out that the crown was gone. I gave them a new soundboard for the labor cost
of the shim job, plus the cost of the new panel and ribstock. Everything
came out well, and I got to give my new press and jigs a tryout on a
no-fault basis.


Mark Story. RPT
Eastern Washington University
Cheney, Washington

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]  On Behalf
Of Farrell
Sent:	Thursday, November 16, 2000 12:20 PM
To:	pianotech@ptg.org
Subject:	Bridge Pin Drilling

I have refurbished bridges with small cracks next to the bridge pins
successfully using epoxy. In these cases the position of the original bridge
pin hole was quite evident. I will be repairing a bass bridge on a 1937
Mathushek Spinet Grand (this piano - what a hoot! - pretty good shape) in
the near future. The speaking length side bicord pins have all cracked the
bridge top and all moved over like little dominoes, such that there is a
continuous crack all along the pin line. The bicord bass strings are
straight over the bridge, there is no dogleg as there should be across the
bridge top because of the pin movement due to the cracked bridge top. I know
the best thing to do is recap. This is out of the question due to financial
considerations.