[pianotech] Slipping Becket

[David Love]

Good question, I don't know.  The piano was restrung a few years back but
not by me (though I do know who did the work and could ask him).  I had seen
this sequence of photos you included before and wondered if it was really
enough to cause a problem such as I encountered.  Interestingly I tuned the
piano on at least 3-4 occasions previously and this only suddenly happened.
Why it should choose to let go now I'm not sure.  

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Albert Picknell
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 2:12 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Slipping Becket

Hello David

Are these Diamond brand tuning pins?  We did a thread about this (which I
started) a couple of years ago which was subsequently reproduced in the May
2010 Journal.  I've never had a becket slip with any other brand of tuning
pin, and I'm convinced that the slippage had to do with the rounding at the
opening of the becket holes.  The attached photo may make it clearer: the
pins are, from left to right, Denro, Diamond, and Yamaha.

BTW, I'm not knocking Diamond brand tuning pins; I use them and quite like
them.  But that slight rounding at the opening of the becket holes just
means one has to be a little more careful to get a good sharp bend in the
wire, and not put tension on a string with the becket protruding, which can
put a slight bend in the becket, making it even more likely to slip.
Unfortunately, when a becket does slip out of the hole the rounding at the
opening of the hole is made worse.

In a situation like the one you describe, I'd be inclined to go with Ron's
suggestion.

My take,
Bert


--- On Fri, 1/27/12, David Love <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: David Love <davidlovepianos at comcast.net>
> Subject: [pianotech] Slipping Becket
> To: pianotech at ptg.org
> Received: Friday, January 27, 2012, 3:11 PM I have an interesting 
> problem with a Yamaha C7 c 1980.  Nickel pins.  There is one pin in 
> which I can't get the becket to not slip and be pulled through the 
> pin.  Interestingly I've tuned this piano many times.  At this most 
> recent tuning I was going over the tuning and noticed that one unison 
> (high
> treble) had slipped considerably.  My first thought was that I had for 
> skipped it somehow in my sequence.  But as I pulled it up to pitch 
> again it simply continued to slip back. I realized that the becket was 
> moving so took off the string, cut off the old becket and reinserted 
> the string with a longer becket.  This one slipped as well.  Since the 
> string spanned two notes and was high up in the piano I decided to 
> leave it until I could decide to either replace the tuning pin or 
> figure out exactly why this was happening.  I've avoided nickel tuning 
> pins for various reasons (mostly looks and tuning lever feel) when 
> possible but haven't encountered something like this.  There is 
> clearly something about the pin which is causing this to happen but 
> I'm not sure exactly what that is.
> Thoughts?
> 
> David Love
> www.davidlovepianos.com