CA Glue for pins

[Dean May]

> Can someone who has used the method seriously and considers himself a 
>good workman please give a simply account of the procedure


I don't know if I meet your qualifiers, but I do have considerable
experience in using CA for treating pins. Here is what I have previously
posted:

There has been much discussion on how to CA treat the tuning pins. You could
search the archives and spend many hours. Here is a post I sent a couple of
years ago. Hope it helps.

Use thin CA glue. Don't use accelerator. You want the glue to soak into the
wood with deep penetration. The accelerator would cause it to set
prematurely. When you give the pin its initial turn after treatment, you
will find there is not much glue left in the joint to bond the pin to the
wood. It snaps loose pretty easily. It is increased pressure from the pin
block that tightens the pin and this is exactly what we want.

Fill a hypo oiler with the glue which should be about 2 oz. Lay the piano on
its back. Apply glue to base of pin very much like you would apply the old
pin tightener. I squeeze the bottle for 1/2 to 3/4 of second at each pin. Go
through all pins twice. You should end up with about 1/4 of the bottle left.
Don't use more than one bottle. That would be overkill. It just doesn't take
as much glue as you think it should. This glue has tremendous capillary
action. Put a couple of drops on the end of a small dowel rod and watch it
wick up the grain.

The glue has such positive capillary action that you really don't even need
to lay the piano down. (It is more convenient and a little safer to lay it
down.) To apply vertically, just put the tip of the hypo oiler at the top of
the pin at the base and squeeze out a little glue. The trick is to stop
squeezing before the glue starts running down the plate. Have some Q-tips
handy to mop up any excess that does run down the plate, or it will go on
down the strings onto the damper felt. Ask me how I know. You should lay the
piano down if you have time. But there have been unusual circumstances where
I wanted to fix the piano without charging the customer full price. A most
recent one was a customer who had already paid for a regular pin treatment
several years ago. The pin treatment wasn't holding up very well (it had
already been treated several times before me) so I put the glue on. They had
already paid me for a pin treatment (Pin-Tite, not CA) to solve the problem
several years ago. Plus, they were a regular customer so I wanted to
"warranty" my work, even though there was not an express warranty given (in
fact, with the Pin-Tite treatments I used to always expressly indicate that
there was NO warranty that it would work). Since I wasn't getting paid and
didn't have much time, I didn't lay it down. It still worked great, and this
was a pretty pervasive case of rotten pin block.

If you are doing a grand be sure to put newspaper between the pin block and
the action, though I've never had any glue make it to the newspaper like I
have with regular Pin-Tite. You could also remove the action, flip the piano
upside down and apply the glue to the bottom of the hole. But that really
isn't necessary.

Let it sit for about 20 minutes. When you use that much glue without
accelerator it takes awhile to cure. 20 minutes usually gives enough time
for the pins to be tight enough to hold, but you really don't need to wait.
If a pin isn't tight enough to hold, just go on and tune the others. It will
be tight enough when you are done with the rest of the piano. I have found
them to be even tighter after several days. I have had one or two problem
pins that didn't tighten enough. I removed them, squirted glue directly into
the hole and immediately re-inserted the pin. Worked beautifully.

I charge the equivalent of about 3 tunings for this 30 minute procedure and
give it an 8 year warranty. The 8 year warranty is a value added service
that justifies the expense and really sells it for the customer. Every
customer who has purchased this work has been very happy about the price. I
just did one yesterday for a church. They are thrilled. They still know that
the piano needs rebuilt or replaced. They just don't have the money to do
that, but they do have $200-300 to pay for a guarantee that they can make it
8 more years with the piano they have. Remember they aren't paying for the
30 minute service; they are paying for the value added guarantee. And you
are saving them thousands of dollars to get them through 8 more years.

I personally haven't been treating pins this way for more than 4 years.
But other techs I've talked to have ten plus years experience with it and
they indicate it still works very well. Worst case scenario is that you
might have a piano with 3-4 very problem child pins. If that happens, pull
out last resort tricks: pull pin and squirt glue in hole, use oversize pins,
use fiberglass resin, or very last resort, drill it out and plug it. Very
worst case scenario I could refund their money.  But generally I could nurse
any piano along for a few more years even before I had the CA glue trick.
Now I am even more confident that I can get them through another 8 years
with the CA glue.

As I've said before, I like Kwick Kleen (www.kwickkleen.com) brand of CA
though recently I've had very good success with glue from my local hobby
store. Kwick Kleen is always fresh. You can call to order with a credit card
at (888) 222-9767. I'd recommend a half dozen bottles of thin, one bottle of
medium and an 8 oz bottle of accelerator for a start up order. And be sure
to get a dozen hypo oilers from Schaff. Some guys like to use syringes. I
like hypo oilers. Whatever you use, the tips will plug eventually, so get
plenty of them. I peel the label off an empty glue bottle and put it on the
hypo oiler so I know what is in there (doesn't everyone have a dozen hypos
on their bench with various unknown fluids in them?). When the tip plugs I
just change tips and throw the new hypo bottle away. Wish I could buy just
the tips somewhere.


Dean

Dean May             cell 812.239.3359 

PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272 

Terre Haute IN  47802


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of John Delacour
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 3:51 AM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: CA Glue for pins [was Re: Aaaaarrrrrgh, Part Deux

At 21:50 +0100 26/9/07, Richard Brekne wrote:

>...I myself am a sceptic to CA in this context

If I had not read hundreds of postings to this list lauding the 
effectiveness and harmlessness of superglue, so would I be, but I am 
certainly enough persuaded by now to begin using it experimentally, 
and not on worn-out old heaps -- simply because such beasts don't get 
near my workshop.

Anything that can obviate the need to use larger pins is surely 
desirable.  I have just acquired a fine Lipp upright that has had a 
few strings untidily replaced, almost certainly due to tuner error 
since, like the proverbial Rolls Royce back-axle, "Lipp strings don't 
break", and the strings otherwise are good for at least another 50 
years.  This piano has agraffes all the way through, so restringing 
with a size larger pin would be slightly less troublesome than with a 
pressure bar piano. Generally speaking an upright piano is designed 
for the original size of pin and many pianos, even from the best 
makers, do not take well to the use of a larger pin : the strings 
scrape against each other and it is difficult to get the strings to 
stay put in their proper position, even with a slight increase in the 
size of the wrestpins.

In spite of the many postings on this topic, I am still a little 
unsure of the best way to apply the glue and which variety to use. 
Can someone who has used the method seriously and considers himself a 
good workman please give a simply account of the procedure.

JD