Ditch the tuning pin bushings

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erwinpiano" <Erwinpiano@email.msn.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: May 13, 2001 1:04 PM
Subject: Fw: Ditch the tuning pin bushings


> 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.

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As far as I can tell, no. It doesn't seem to matter a great deal, if at all.
True, in extreme cases it may alter the tuning pin feel some, but during my
years of tuning and servicing new Steinway pianos (from roughly the early
70s through the mid 80s -- and not vintage years, those) I must have gotten
used to them. They didn't bother me much at all. There were a couple of
really extreme cases that required new pinblocks, but in these cases there
were multiple problems, not just a few pins touching the plate.

Another thought though; someone mentioned to me the problem of restringing
with oversize pins -- something I'd not really thought about since we don't
do this. I suppose this could be a problem in some cases. Still, I know of
several technicians who do regularly restring these pianos using oversize
pins and I've never heard them complain about this. Anyone had problems
along these lines?

Del