shimmed tuning pins

[Tony Caught]

Tom,

Are the holes deep enough ?. Has the CA glue filled the threads on the pins
?

Tony Caught
Darwin
Australia
caute@optusnet.com.au


----- Original Message -----
From: <Tvak@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2002 1:01 PM
Subject: shimmed tuning pins


> 1935 Dekalb baby grand piano with about 8 loose pins in the bass area.
>
> Pinblock cracks?  Well, yes, but an examination of the pin block reveals
> similar cracks throughout the block, and yet only these pins in the bass
are
> affected.  The cracks don't emanate from these pins either.
>
> I CA glued them this past summer, and that seemed to do the trick, but at
> that time the piano was in a garage.  Now that it's indoors, and the
humidity
> is much lower, the pins are loose again. A second dose of CA helped a few
but
> not all.  (One problem with the CA glue is that it seems to well up in a
pool
> at the base of the pin, and doesn't seem to go down into the hole where
it's
> needed.)
>
> Anyway, I unscrewed the loose pins and inserted a sandpaper shim, 80 grit,
> face outward, drove the pins back in about half way or so, and this worked
> great on all but two of the pins.  On these two, the pins do not seem to
> thread themselves any deeper into the hole.  I turned and turned and they
> just twirl in place.  I hammered them in farther and they do hold the
string
> tension (so far, anyway) but they are higher than their neighbors and look
> strange.
>
> What's the deal with these two?  There are a couple more to do, and I'm
> paranoid that they won't thread their way back in either.
>
> Any thoughts or advice?
>
> Tom Sivak