Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Why not using cheap tuning hammers?

I don't know why guys spend money on tips and hammers. I just use my fingers, you can really feel the pin movement this way, haha. However if its been a long day and my fingers are tired I use a Charles Faulk hammer. I also don't think $130 is a lot to spend on a tip if it works well. If you are just starting out tuning I can understand not coughing up that kind of cash, but when this is your career invest in the best.

I worked many years in high end machining and Tool and die with a great deal of that time quoting prices for items far more sophisticated than an internally splined tuning tip. I would have to be insane to pay $130 for a tuning tip. There is no applicable alloy, heat treating process, machining operation or finish that can justify that cost for this item....period. I would love to see any proof showing otherwise.

I've had the odd tip not last as long as I wished it would from even good names like Watanabe, but have several which have lasted many, many years for 1/10 that cost.

Some tuning hammers fit some pianos better than others. I carry about 3 different ones around

DUe to the "smoothness" of the pin material, I suggest that an ideal tip will "reshape" the tuning pin.

I have seen enough edges rounded by bad tips, I received tips that had a very thin strip shaped in star and where putting all the torque on a small part of the pin.

The cost may sound really high indeed, but if it allow to keep an optimal fit for a definite number of decades, it may be worth it.

I rate well tips as Yamaha (not Watanabe, but I do not know them well, my tips are coming from Yamaha) Jahnn levers and tips seem also to be the ones that last the longer, for the ones I used) Sole, Hale, always wear at some point. Jahnn seemed to last 3 times that if not more, I use a student long thin lever for stringing, and it did not take any play.

A customer of mine tried to touch up her piano with a cheapo lever, and the tip deformed to the point that the tuning pin became imbedded in it. Neither she nor I could get the lever off the pin. I even tried a hammer shank extractor as a last resort, using the plate as leverage, hoping it would separate the hammer from the pin.

In the end, I had to cut the string and turn the pin and lever out as a single unit, then install a new pin and string.

This situation can happen to anyone. Very soft tip-head wrench "fused" with the pin. To avoid this, you need to make a homemade key only if the forging equipment. We must forge the verge of a pin. We also need solid steel.
Women should not be given into the hands of t. hammer

"T-Hammer" is a blues/rock band here in North America and they treat their women fine. I believe you meant to say that a woman should not be allowed, or doesn't have the capability to properly use a tuning hammer....which is actually quite a sexist innapropriate remark. I know a few female tuners who would "tune yer a$$" with one if you said that to them personally. Shame

I would just say to be mindful of cultural differences, which surely vary from country to country.

I'm talking about the lady not professional

Indeed, especially when posting on an English-speaking forum from Kazakhstan. Really, I don't see what gender has to do with inferior tuning tools.

I'm not sure who your statement was directed to because of the double quote, but if it included me...

It is polite, and possibly also advantageous, to abide by the customs of a society when one is a visitor there; the internet however is neutral ground.

max, I've been in the position of having to repair DIY jobs at least a dozen times over the years and every one of the "non-proffesionals" was a man. Maybe its a rare coincidence, but I look at it this way...I beleive women in general have more common sense to not tackle something thats way over their head then men do. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.

My apologies either way, if your comment wasn't meant to be sexist...sometimes these bing translaters mutilate a language.

Once we receives asian pianos with tuning pins so hard, on one of them the tuner deformed many pins while tuning and broke one.

One of the tuning pin could not move at all, it bend, twist, but no way to turn it, as glued)

I dont know what lever had my colleague but he may have marred its tips at the same time as the pins on the piano.
The piano was returned of course.

I even tried to heat the locked tuning pin with a torch, no effect.

Many of my colleagues had locally made tuning levers with a not precise fit (a dimension or angle question within the tips)

I dont know why some times really seem to fall tight on almost all pins, while others are always rocking more than wanted.

Sorry for the confusion, Emmery; I actually meant that for Max.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLl0k1MpaQE&feature=youtu.be

The better the tools you buy, the better the job gets done.

There is no sexism.
On a woman keeps the whole world. We are to honor women in all its acts, even if she does that wrong often. I'm just against homemade t. hammer of a soft metal. A woman will tuning own piano with it's and she can be seriously to maim the piano. But to fix will need the tech-man

There are women who are far better piano technicians than you are, Max.

There is always the best and the worst. This is the dialectic of life. BDB, you have not thing opened. If you wanna offend Max, he never is offended

Max. Maybe it's the translator or perhaps there's something I'm not understanding, would you explain to me why you can make this statement?

I'll try again.
Where I lives, a woman should give birth and do your home deals and educate children.
A man is breadwinner. A woman should always listen carefully to her husband. She has to do everything the way He solves. If we ignore it, it will be bad, I'm think
I am not against women who repair their own piano. However, very often, she do not understand what do. She can "lick sides of a pin" when working homemade hammer. To correct this you need a Man. That's what I was trying to say.
Regards, Max

Jean, the third tip, the long one. Was that an old Hale, like maybe 35 years or so old?