[pianotech] Pin Driving Fluid Search

[Ron Nossaman]

jimialeggio wrote:
> I'm interested in experimenting with pin driving fluid. 

I was curious too, so I did. A couple of months ago, I took a 
cutoff from one of my hybrid blocks, double-drilled four sets 
of three holes in it, and tried three arbitrary pin driving 
fluids. The first row of dry driven pins (the control) were at 
around 175lbs initially. All the fluid driven pins were 
considerably lower initially.

The dry driven pins are still in the 170-175 range.

The second row, which was lacquer sanding sealer, are the 
lowest, at around 100.

The third row, which was Danish oil, started out with very low 
torque, snapping uncontrollably when moved. This was expected, 
but I wanted to see where it would end up. Today, it's in the 
170-175 range and all pins turn quite nicely. Functionally 
similar to the dry driven, which surprised me.

The forth row was a solution of fresh mixed shellac and rosin 
(sports supply). It started out fairly low in torque, but now 
it's in the 170-190 range, and turns quite nicely. The 
readings actually got higher than the dry driven, which also 
surprised me.

So everything I tried (so far) worked about like everything 
else, in spite of the rather more wide than usual criteria for 
choice of fluid types. The big difference (so far) is the 
"settle in" torque range.

So it seems to me (so far) that there's an awful lot of smoke 
being generated in pin driving fluid Neverland. This does 
*not* surprise me. Maybe 37.2154 years from now, everything 
but the mythological and universally unobtainable ("Shoulda 
been here last year. We had TONS of the stuff, but you can't 
get it now") elixir of torque will spontaneously dissolve the 
block. It would be fun to be around and see it not happen, 
except that no one would either notice or care.

So my conclusion (so far) is that any sort of sheep dip you 
can find that isn't obviously or logically outright 
destructive will probably work about like any to-die-for, 
unenlightened not eligible, secret handshake, glow in the 
dark, heal the sick, raise the dead, payable in blood nostrum 
that unobtainably remains eternally shimmering at the edge of 
reality like the peripheral Boojums that dart past the doorway 
when you are looking elsewhere.

But that could change.
Ron N