woe on the boat,(block epoxy)

[A440A@aol.com]

Greetings, 
    Ok,  so I took it in a weak moment, but it is on the bench and I gotta 
deal with it.  
A local jazz musician, completely disgusted with the sound of electric 
keyboards on jazz gigs, went looking for an easily portable acoustic piano.  He 
found it on Ebay.  It is a 1910 Cramer "Ship piano".  Five octaves, fold-out 
keyboard, weighs about 150 pounds.  67 bass strings in bichords and a few strung 
notes on top.  Oh, did I mention the bird cage?  
    Anyhow, the ribs were almost completely separated from the board, the 
board was separated from most of the back, and the posts were loose at the sides 
and bottom.  The bridges were also easily popped off once the strings were 
removed.  I got all that stuff reglued, and will be putting the soundboard back 
in tomorrow.  The block is the last real task to deal with. The block comprises 
the upper portion of the sounding assembly and there was no way to remove it 
without completely destroying the piano and starting from scratch. 
    The piano was strung with atypical tuning pins, (at least, in my 
experience).  They are .250" diameter and only 2 inches long.  These are smaller than 
any piano pins I know of, and larger than the zither/harpsichord pins.  The 
dainty little plate doesn't encourage me to drill the holes out to accomodate 
the 1/0 pins, and they are all too long,anyhow.   I can only imagine re-using 
the originals.  There was marginal torque on quite a few of them prior to 
disassembly, so I want to treat the block before driving them back.  
    I have, against all my "traditional" training, become a fan of CA glue in 
the treatment of loose pins, but I wonder if I can't do something a little 
more extreme with this block.  I know that some of you have used the West System 
epoxy in block repair, and would like to know what your technique is.  The 
block is a solid beech beam with two very thin laminations on top.  Any ideas?  
Thanks, 

Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html