[pianotech] Renotching-Repinning-Reusing Bridges in rebuild

Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net
Wed Jan 20 22:30:50 MST 2010


William Monroe wrote:
> Sure, each their own.  For the most part I guess it feels like trading 
> one task for another.  Epoxy size the hole and drill out, or dip the pin 
> and drive in?  Probably a wash for me.  

Or drill deeper, and inject epoxy before inserting new pins.


>Yes, you really do need to wear 
> gloves when driving in the pins and shoe-shining the cap, but it's 
> really a very localized process for me.

You do? Why?


> As for stressing the pins, unless you really bear down on the pins, or 
> sit in one place, there is no danger of lateral stress or overheating.  

If you drill the holes deep enough that the pins won't bottom 
out, there's no need to stress or overheat anything. Just 
drive the pins to finish height and walk. There's no 
acoustically magic reason to bottom pins in the holes (and 
they won't stay there anyway), and finger knuckles like round 
top pins a whole lot more than filed or ground edges.


> Certainly nothing approaching what the strings themselves do, I would 
> think.  

This would be the lateral stress, and correct. Heat, not, 
obviously.


>I've heard the arguments, and I think it's a reasonable concern, 
> but as with most things in this biz, if you use appropriate care with 
> this process, there is no cause for concern.

Ah, but why? When it's just as easy to drill the holes deep 
enough that the pins won't bottom out, so you can drive them 
to final height initially, would anyone worry about the 
potential detriments of filing or grinding the tops?
Ron N


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