<!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 6.00.2600.0" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I took one of these Broadwood uprights = apart recently. Had a 1 1/2" oak pinblock with a 1/4" beech cross lamination = capped by a veneer of maple and cardboard to fit a 3/8"cast plate which only = covered the block. The hitchpin plates were very crudely made out of 1/4" iron = screwed onto beech. There were agraffes on the pinblock but their function was only = to space the strings as there were little brass wedges infront of them acting as = the actual terminations. The pins had a good inch in the wood as well as the = 3/8" in the iron. I think that it would have been quite feasible to drill out = the screw thread in the plate and use modern style pins in this particular piano. = But I cant say the same for the grands with the same system as their cast = pinblock plate is thicker.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Andrew Nolan</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>