Pinblock drilling. Trying again for help!

[Paul]

Ron

I, too, drill the block in the piano, but I use a drill bit with an
extension on it, because the jobber length drill bits were too short to
reach the block with my drill press. So, I experimented. The whole thing
measures about 10'' long. No math to figure the lengths. It's just what I
had on hand at the time. The extension had a 1/4" hole in it, so I drilled
it out to fit the F drill bit and tightened up the clamping screws. I
learned from metal fabricating experience that a drill bit will "find" the
center if the center is dimpled with a punch and/or drilled with a pilot
hole. The longer the bit, the easier the centering. The pin block is center
punched for all the holes. The long bit readily finds the center and easily
compensates for any slight drill press misalignment. I've just received
other lengths and sizes of bits with different flute configurations and
cutting angles. I'll post the results. As far as feed and spindle speed: too
slow a speed and fast feed cuts a ragged hole. Too fast a spindle speed and
too slow a feed will glaze the hole if not scorch it. Practice different
rates to find where your machine will perform the best. Slice the test hole
open and examine your results.

Paul Chick

P.S. I enjoy your humor. Glad you're on the list.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Nossaman <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 7:13 AM
Subject: Re: Pinblock drilling. Trying again for help!


> >Ok, good answer but how does a blind man drill two holes in
> >the same place twice when the subject gets moved around a
> >lot.
>
>
> Same way he drills one hole in the right place the first time, only he
does
> it again. Sorry, I responded to your private post before I got to this
one,
> so if you don't want to read the same thing again - better bale now.
>
> I drill blocks in the piano. The block doesn't move around, but the drill
> press does. Drilling on the bench, the drill press doesn't move around but
> the block does. The methods are functionally equivalent. Hitting the
> existing hole with the second pass is far easier than hitting the punch
> mark (or whatever) on the first. Because one of the two players (drill
> press - block) is relatively free to move, the bit will self center if you
> aren't dead on when you feed the bit down. If the bit is lowered into the
> hole with anywhere near the same care as with a single pass drilling,
there
> won't be any detectable damage done with this self centering. I started
> doing them this way because I got tired of producing poor quality pin fit
> in my rebuilds with "traditional" methods. I assumed there had to be a way
> that a semi-trained ape with a short attention span (that would be me)
> could get a decent uniform pin fit by non mystical methods. This produced
> far more uniform results, with a much less critical attention to detail,
in
> a similar amount of time (or at least not much more), than any other
> combination of bit type, rotational and feed speed, blood sacrifices, or
> resignation to my fate, that I had tried up to that point. There probably
> is a better way, but this worked so well for me, in an easily maintained
> low tech manner, that I didn't pursue it further.
>
> Just trying to help, and you DID ask.
>
> Regards,
> Ron N
>