[pianotech] alternate universe available - serious inquiries only

Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net
Fri Oct 29 22:02:13 MDT 2010


On 10/29/2010 10:19 PM, John Formsma wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 10:16 PM, Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net
> <mailto:rnossaman at cox.net>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     The old Vose & Sons had what I always thought was a wonderful
>     feature - tapered tuning pins. Tap the loose ones lightly, and grip
>     happens!
>     Ron N
>
>
>
> Did those pins look different from modern pins? It has been some years
> since seeing any Vose pianos. But I think they looked like any pin you'd
> see nowadays. I'd guess I would have tried tapping some of them, though.
>
> --
> JF

They look utterly harmless and anonymous, and just like anything else. 
The good part is the taper buried in the block where you can't see it. A 
little tap, and they go back in time to when they were a firm fit. I 
don't think anything short of pinblock disintegration would render these 
things ineffective. The rest of the piano will still be a wraith of 
faded substance, but the tuning pin system is the closest to immortal 
that I think I've seen. It strikes me as odd that, given the tendency of 
techs to "angst" over any measured discrepancy from pin to pin in a set, 
tapered pins aren't (?) available.
Ron N


More information about the pianotech mailing list

This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC