I've also had issues with the Diamond brand. I was actually having strings cut into the pin, eventually breaking the string at the coil. Initially the one string of the unison would go flat by 20-50cents. I would re-tune and a day later, it was flat again. After multiple service calls the string eventually broke. Repairing the string yielded the same result. Then I started noticed that the becket hole was actually elongating by the string pressure. This was a piano I had recently restrung and I probably had about a dozen pins out of the set that did the very same thing. It was over a year's time, but one by one, I had to replace the 20 defective pins until the problem subsided. No more Diamond pins! Tom Servinsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> To: <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 6:10 PM Subject: Re: [pianotech] Slipping Becket 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
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