hitch pin glitch

[Porritt, David]

I guess I'm confused on this issue (not unusual!)  Does the warranty
cover this or not??  

dp

David M. Porritt
dporritt at smu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On
Behalf Of A440A at aol.com
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 1:43 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: hitch pin glitch

Tom writes: 
<<  I was tuning a 4 year old S&S Model S yesterday.  The piano was
slightly 
low in pitch, but not significantly, having been tuned only 6 months
ago.  By 
me. <snip> The string at C8 broke at the capo bar.  I was shocked.
<snip> I 
noticed the plate hitch pin.  It was bent at a forward angle, leaning
towards 
the keys, unlike all the other hitch pins (with a few notable
exceptions, 
actually), which were all leaning back away from the keys at about the 2
o'clock 
angle.  This hitch pin was at an 11 o'clock angle.  

   

    The string didn't slip off the hitch pin, it broke at the capo when
it 
almost got up to pitch.  

   <snip? I guess it's possible that the strings breaking were unrelated
to 
the hitch pin situation, but then why would the new string break?   >>

Greetings, 
        I had an identical experience.  4 year old S, string at C5 would
not 
hold pitch longer than a day or so, finally noticed the hitch pin.  it
was 
definitely moving toward me.  I lowered tension on the string and with a
light 
tug, broke the hitch pin off!   I punched the stub out through the
bottom, 
redrilled and installed another pin.  It began leaning, also.  Hmm,  I
went up one 
pin sized,drilled .002" undersize, and tapped it in.  Everything has
been fine 
for the last few years.  Factory paid for the repair.  If you will tape
a 
refridgerator magnet on the end of a soundboard steel, you can place it
directly 
under the plate and catch all the bits of iron and stuff. 
    The scale, if even slightly too long at C88 will break a lot of
strings.  
This one does it, too.  I would be tempted to attach a slight extension
to 
the bridge in the place of the notch, and recut it closer to the capo.
I don't 
know of any other way to fix it in the piano.  The official line on this
is 
probably not inclusive enough to allow re-engineering, though.  

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