Fw: Ditch the tuning pin bushings

[Erwinpiano]

Ron N writes

Would you assume that a new or newly rebuilt instrument without bushings
> in
> > > which tuning pins already contacting plate is starting out with an
> acceptable
> > > alteration in its design parameters?
> >
> > DEL Responds

> > Absolutely not. It's starting out with sloppy workmanship.
>
> I wonder about this....
>
> If you'll make a drawing of the S&S tuning pin arrangement as designed and
> installed, lo these past 100+ years, you'll find that there is just about
no
> way to keep the pins from contacting the plate. Given the thickness of the
> plate panel over the pinblock, the diameter of the holes, the diameter of
> the pins and the mandated pin back angle the pin is going to contact the
> plate no matter how careful you are at drilling. Indeed, it begins to look
> like this contact was intentional from the start. I suspect this is how
they
> managed to keep their three-ply pinblocks from self-destructing. It is
also
> the only explanation I can think of for their long-term practice of
drilling
> at such an extreme back angle -- the pins can contact the plate at the
> bottom edge and still look reasonably centered out where folks can see
> them..   DEL FANDRICH
>
         Del Rons List

       All this talk about plate bushing! We are a bunch of tecn -no geeks.
Del your last paragraph here got me to thinking some more about the stwy
tuning pin plate hole size and how the pins couldn't help but contact the
plate . Sooooo I had to go take a closer look. I currently have two stwy A .
One is a 1906 and the other a 1923 ish.  Both are original stringing. I went
looking to see how many pins contacted the plate flange.  On the larger
holes with the champfer the eldest A had no pins leaning against the flange.
In the low tenor and bass it was difficult to see for sure but it did appear
some did some didn't.  On the newer A even in the top end ther were at least
a couple dozen leaning into the flange and in the bass as far as I could
tell many were leaning.
      O.K. so I've tuned both pianos(and many others) and they tune well.
So that being the case does it really matter that they lean into the flange
some if the tuning stability and ease of pin render doesn't suffer.
Obviously we have all tuned these pianos with great success for years and at
least some of those pianos had more than a few pins touching. Other than
sloppy drilling and the alleged denials from stwy that the pins don't touch
the flange because of design or whatever does it matter?  Would it matter if
they all touched? I wouldn't want them to but now that I've been enlightened
to the fact that all those old stwys I enjoyed tuning were probably similar
to the ones I just described, who cares should we care.The soution for
rebuilders is fit the block and drill carefully.
   I know that we have all been frustrated by the stwy party line,pedantic
style and frustrating parts dept. but I and also remember that I  still get
my best raw materials from them.

   Best

 Dale Erwin
>
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