<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1605" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT size=2>I believe that the pins were defective....it's not unusual to find several of them, I think someone was in the middle of a restring and opted to use rather than reorder...??</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>tom</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=IFixPianos@yahoo.com href="mailto:IFixPianos@yahoo.com">Michael Magness</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=pianotech@ptg.org href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">Pianotech List</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, February 05, 2008 6:25 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: Puzzler</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV><BR><BR> <DIV class=gmail_quote>On Feb 5, 2008 6:00 PM, Ron Nossaman <<A href="mailto:rnossaman@cox.net">rnossaman@cox.net</A>> wrote:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><BR>>   Who will rid me of this troublesome priest! (Henry II in reference to<BR>> Becket (St. Thomas)).<BR><BR>Troublesome, perhaps, but putatively askance.<BR>Ron N<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <DIV><BR>Reminiscent of a tuning pin I removed from a Jesse French spinet many years ago. The tuning pins were generally loose and the piano wouldn't hold tune, so as was the practice at the time, I doped it using . I found it improved the tuning pin tightness and hold throughout the piano except for one pin the center string of A-440. The owner informed me that note had never held tune since she had first begun to play the piano as a girl. She was by then a wife and mother with children of her own taking lessons. I decided to replace the pin with an oversize and unhooked the string and wound out the pin. I discovered it had stamped threads rather than cut threads and that the threads were only stamped on the upper third of the shank where threads should be, the lower 2/3's were as smooth as a center pin. This, of course, explained why it had never held, I went ahead and replaced it with a number 3 rather than a number 4 and it held quite nicely. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Another oddball tuning pin I've run across, only in Starck (made in Chicago) pianos were the pins without a becket hole that went all the way through! The becket hole stopped short of being drilled through to the other side. The first time you notice it is when a string has broken, which happens often on these nasty little creatures, so you turn the hole on the tuning pin toward the ceiling and begin fishing the wire in the other side, but it won't go you try and try and try and finally turn the pin to look and there is no hole on the other side! At first I thought it was a faulty pin but as I worked on more of them I found they were all that way!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Mike<BR clear=all><BR>-- <BR>Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.<BR>Michael Magness<BR>Magness Piano Service<BR>608-786-4404<BR><A href="http://www.IFixPianos.com">www.IFixPianos.com</A><BR>email <A href="mailto:mike@ifixpianos.com">mike@ifixpianos.com</A> </DIV> <P> <HR> <P></P>No virus found in this incoming message.<BR>Checked by AVG Free Edition. <BR>Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.20/1260 - Release Date: 2/5/2008 9:44 AM<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>