Hi William, Thank you for your replies. I have a few comments and questions, which I have included below. From: William Monroe <bill at a440piano.net> Date: January 20, 2010 5:14:46 PM EST > 5. Apply DAG - judiciously. I try not to slop over the edges, into the notches and such, but I'm not obsessive. Am I the only one who worries about getting lubricant in the bridge pin holes? If so, I'll have to quit worrying about it. OK, so I'll pretend to quit worrying about it, plug the holes temporarily before applying lubricant while no one is watching, and then pretend that I didn't.... > 7. Epoxy in new bridge pins with West System, then, while still wet, use panty hose (I prefer knee-highs ) in a shoe shine method to remove excess epoxy and seal the notches, and the bridge root. This sounds like a great idea! I guess I'll have to swallow my pride and go out and buy pantyhose. Maybe I'll wear sunglasses (have to buy those first). I'm definitely not telling anyone that I shoe shine with pantyhose, though. I'm just not that kind of guy. Does the DAG mix into and discolor the epoxy that seals the notches and bridge root? I presume that you wipe/shoeshine towards the bridge top to mitigate that, if it does.... > 8. Level Bridge pins with a belt sander and high-quality belts - it makes a huge difference. I used to use coarse grit belt, followed by a quick filing to clean up, but now I level them with the coarse and clean them up with a p220 belt. Coarse grit does a good job of not heating the pins up, so long as you don't sit in one spot from start to finish. I once got out the belt sander, plugged it in, and carried it to the piano belly with the intention of leveling bridge pins, but I kept looking at that beautiful, refinished inner rim, and I chickened out. It's a powerful beast. I am heartened to know that you use it successfully (presumably with no damage?). > From: William Monroe <bill at a440piano.net> > Date: January 20, 2010 5:34:47 PM EST > > I should add that if the bridge is getting nickel/stainless/whatever pins that are rounded on top, I'll do any depth drilling that is needed as soon as the old one are out. Then, when installing, I have two different punches I use that Dana Mazzaglia (http://www.mazzagliatools.com/) made. I ground the tip down on one a little and now I have two depth settings I use for installing the pins. For copper pins, I just drive them in and then use the sander, for nickel/whatever, I drive them with the punch, just short of marking the top with the punch, then they are all even right away. I will get the Mazzaglia bridge pin setting tool; thanks for the recommendation. Have used the tri-punch, but somehow never noticed the pin setter. For the nickel pins that you set to finished height, I will recycle a question that I asked of David Love: "When you do this, how do you handle intersecting bridge pin holes (as can happen along the most curved part of the bridge)? It makes sense to keep the longer pins in the front (since it is the most important termination area). If you shorten the back ones, how do you do it? Cutting them deforms the cut end, which would be terrible for the integrity of the hole. I suppose you could grind them...." How's that for green business? ; ) Thanks, Joe DeFazio Pittsburgh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100121/c42bbc04/attachment-0001.htm> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Mail Attachment.gif Type: image/gif Size: 96 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100121/c42bbc04/attachment-0001.gif>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC