I learned to drill pinblocks out of the piano, and even though Ron N's arguments for doing it in the piano are quite compelling, have never gotten around to setting up for that process. Step one, find a radial drill press. Nope, not yet. But I need to improve the consistency of pin torque, and thought that double-drilling might be the answer. I know from painful past experience that you need a pretty effective hold-down for the second drill, else the workpiece will climb up the bit until it hits the chuck, then commence to spin. At that point, all pin torque consistency is gone. So in preparation for my next pinblock, I've prototyped a hold-down clamp. Thought you might be interested in seeing this.. The photo shows test holes being drilled in a piece of pinblock scrap. pilot drill 7/32, final drill "F" .257. Pins in the test piece are reasonably consistent - 125 to 150 in-lb. Of course, the real test is 224 pins in a real piano, so I'll let you know later how it works in production. Meanwhile, I'm curious if anyone else has taken this path, and if so, with what result? -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Pinblock Drilling Clamp 017.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 49820 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100811/6a4813b7/attachment-0001.jpg>
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