[pianotech] Renotching-Repinning-Reusing Bridges in rebuild

Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net
Thu Jan 21 06:42:56 MST 2010


Joe DeFazio wrote:

> 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....

Look at the pinning on Steinway bridges. They go in all sorts 
of directions through the region where they would otherwise 
intersect. If you are following the old holes, there shouldn't 
be a problem with pins intersecting. With new caps, changing 
the back row spacing as David said works fine, or you can do 
what Steinway did originally and angle the pins as necessary 
to miss. If you think you might have "grazers", pin the front 
row through the section first, and run a drill in the suspect 
back row holes before pinning them. There will only be a 
couple that are in doubt.

There's no need to lubricate bridge tops. The pins are the 
high friction area, but Dag does provide visual contrast for 
notching. And yes, you can spray lacquer on the bridge tops, 
pins, and all.
Ron N


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