<html> Hi, Don -- interspersed. <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Hi Susan, I may for minimum treatment on a grand--but on an upright with tipping involved I'd really rather use "too much" rather than have to tip, and tip and tip again. (read "do not tiptoe thru the tulips")</blockquote> Surprise -- I've found I don't need to tip at all. Just slip a few drops in near the seam, at the top of the pin, and it wicks in enough to hold. Helpful to keep a shop towel handy, to catch any drips. You can just put a corner of the towel in between the strings if you see CA dripping down the plate. Do you really think that it is gravity getting the CA into the pinblock holes? Try something -- take a board with a matching pair of hairline cracks. (Be innovative -- figure out how to make identical cracks.) Apply a few drops of CA to the end of one of the cracks, and hold the board so that the treated end is toward the floor. Then do the same thing for the other crack, but hold the board the other way around, so that the treated surface is on top. Does the CA wick further than the first time? Water-thin CA loves to creep into tight openings, one of its best characteristics. I think this accounts for being able to use it even when there are plate bushings, etc., in the way.  <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>I also often suggest the clients do the application themselves. One nice person used 12 ounces of glue on a previously doped block. I didn't have to *tap* even once on that piano.</blockquote> It's nice that you ended up with fairly good torque, in spite of such a gross amount of glue. What is not so nice is that you set up your customer to  dose himself with some very harmful fumes. I hope you mentioned copious ventilation! Also after the job is done, as the stuff out-gasses over time. <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>I'm also quite convinced that tighter pins are better than medium pins--at least for domestic pianos. They simply are more stable as far as tuning goes.</blockquote> It probably depends on how "medium" "medium" is, and how much bother and health danger you are willing to put up with to get "tighter", and also with whether more CA really does give "tighter", or whether most of it goes here, there, and everywhere, including its byproducts into your lungs and liver. There is a window where torque is tight enough, which is where we want to end up. Below the window, pins are too loose to hold, above it, they are jumpy or they seize and even shear off. You prefer somewhere near the top of the window, but have you really investigated if you can get there by some means other than dousing the piano with ounces and ounces of CA in a single application? By using less, and allowing for the possibility of a second application, you might avoid a lot of bother, and also get improved control of the process. i.e. you could do the second application only to the pins which seemed to you too "medium", while leaving those which were already all right. You want the CA to go where the pin meets the block. That is, the CA itself is just coincidental to the real aim, which is to resize the enlarged hole in the block to snugly contact the pin. I think some of the fit is made by glue sticking to the pin, so it matches the hole. Any CA which isn't lining the hole or following cracks radiating from the hole (regluing laminations) is wasted, or maybe even actively harmful. The CA dripping down onto the carpet. The CA gassing into your lungs, sticking to your fingers, wandering over the plate or open pinblock, clogging the bearings, seizing plate screws of grands, etc. There are lots of places you don't want the CA to go. The more you use, the harder (or more impossible) it is to keep the CA confined to its task. <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>The fumes are unpleasant to some of us.</blockquote> The people for whom the fumes are "unpleasant" are the lucky ones, like the people who get ill and throw up when they try to get drunk. People can get cirrhosis of the liver or cancer without feeling bad till the very latest stages, when it's too late for effective treatment. The fumes are bad news, especially repeatedly, in large quantity. You should also consider, if you think your own liver is made of titanium, whether your customers (and their pets) are equally fortunate. They will have to live in the house during the hours or days after you soak their pianos with CA. Sorry if I sound strident -- I feel very strongly about both the health aspect, and about what all the extra CA does to a piano. It all seems so unnecessary. Just consider what might explain the good results I've seen from two applications, as opposed to one. Wish I had the time and energy to do some experimenting on a tired old pinblock, but I don't have any tired old pinblocks, just tired old me. But the mental picture I have is this: there is the loose pin in a hole no longer quite round, with delaminations of the block in the deeper layers. So you add CA glue. It wicks in, where the hole is almost but not quite in contact with the pin, possibly just at the edges of the gap at the top of the pin, which is pulling hard against the bottom of the hole (toward the bridge.) It wicks best where there is JUST enough room. Okay, it hits those cracks between the laminations, and has a field day. Here are cracks the right size in abundance, for inches and inches! It rushes in there, we've made its day. However, it is rushing away from the loose tuning pin, and it hasn't closed that hole at the top (too wide, it is not a gap-filler.) Hey! Susan must have been wrong, I only used a little, and the pin is still loose! Maybe not quite AS loose as it was, but it's STILL LOOSE! Well, if that happens, I think it's because the CA has wandered deep into the block, where it is doing good things like gluing pinblock layers back together. Now, we come back, in a spirit of investigation, and give it a few more drops of CA. Still not a ton. It seeps in slightly higher up in the gap, because the part which has pretty good contact is full of set-up CA. It creeps back along the pin, comes to where the delaminations used to be -- and they are sealed by the first application! It doesn't wick inches along the cracks, because it can't get into them any more! They are fixed! So, more of it stays right at the pin -- which is no longer so loose. Well, that's how I _want_ it to work, and it seems fairly consistent with the results I've observed a few times. Let's say this -- I haven't seen any results which are NOT consistent with this pleasing mental visualization. Certainly worth trying -- wish some of you guys would, especially the ones who will remove old tired pinblocks in your rebuilding, which you could treat with less and more, once, twice, thrice, and then saw apart after you removed them.   Susan <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>At 10:00 AM 2/5/2006 -0800, you wrote: >Don, here, you've said it yourself! "Use lots of CA" followed by "before you >shear them off" > >DON'T use lots of CA, so that they DON'T become frozen! Use just ENOUGH >CA so that they aren't loose anymore. Only trial and error can tell you >how much that is, but I think you'll be surprised at how small an amount >will give you good results. Unlike doping hammers, for instance, a >second application of CA works even better than the first, so if you >find you've used too little (which I've found very seldom happens) >you can just add a little more at the next visit. If, on the other >hand, you always "use lots of CA" you'll never be able to find out how >much is optimum, because you'll always use more CA than optimum, probably >a LOT more. It also has very nasty fumes in large volume. How much is >your health worth? Enough to revisit an automatic decision about how >much CA is "right"? Heck, that's FREE! All it takes is some mental >flexibility. > >sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssnnnnn (sheesh .....) Regards, Don Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.P.T. 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