John and Al, Sorry, I didn't express myself very well. I am of course well aware of the horrid and useless metal sleeve type shims, and have along with others condemned them on here in the past. What I observed in this Rachals piano seemed quite different however. The metal sleeve type shims are split along their length and have a serrated cheese-grater type surface. What I observed in the hole where I took out the pin, looked different. The plate is about 3/8" thick, and the metal that I observed was properly inside the pinblock hole. The surface appeared smooth and continuous. Significantly too, as I stated, the bottom end of the metal seemd closed, like the rounded end of a those large metal cigar tubes. That's why the pin wouldn't hammer further into the pinblock. I was speculting that this was part of the additional measures taken to make the piano more rugged and stable for the Indian market. I should really have turned out another pin to check if they were all like that, but there was no time as the customer had to go out. On the next visit I will check! And try for a photo. But has anyone heard of pinblock holes being lined with metal, as part of a 'ruggedising' procedure? The threaded surface of the pin was clean and untarnished. Best regards, David. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090506/85dda54a/attachment.html>
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