Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Curiosity of piano restringing

Hello,all.
It is a question which has been confusing to me for long.

During the restringing process,most rebuilders would use a hammer to drive the new pin in.

But what i m thinking now is if it is appropriate to screw the new pin in.I mean turn the new tuning pin into the pin block.really really slow to avoid heat generated.

Is that because of the time consumption issue that stops people to use this method?

Or maybe it will get a lower torque reading comparing to the conventional method?Maybe



Plz if anybody had that experience,please help.any suggestions count!

I have done both, and I think that hammering holds a little better.

A lot of factories use a machine to screw the wrest pins in at the same time as winding the coil. Works fine, but it looks like a very pricey but of kit...! Might be possible these days to build one using a pair of stepper motors or servos, but I think you’d need to be doing a lot of stringing work to justify building the machine. That said, it would make stringing a much more serene task!

Just to talk about the time consumption: the average grand piano has somewhere in the neighborhood of 230 tuning pins. If you were to turn each one in slowly enough to avoid heat buildup, you're still talking probably a minute per pin, which works out to nearly 4 hours extra time spent on the piano. That's a lot of time that could be better spent elsewhere.

You'd also add more wear to the block by turning it in, as you're crushing more of the fibers by turning it in than by pounding it in. Pre-forming the coils would also be out the window - as that only works if you then pound the pin down to its appropriate height. If you're turning each pin in, you'd have to start the coil on the pin after having turned the pin down to a predetermined height (that technically would change as you change the diameter of the wire). That works okay, but also adds time and makes keeping the coils and beckets tight more difficult in tight tuning pin fields.

Overall, it just seems like whatever benefit (if any) you may achieve by turning in each pin isn't worth the lost time.

I think hammering them in is less detrimental than turning them in by hand. The threads move across grain for a total of maybe 1 inch on their way down when hammered. If you begin turning, each rotation equals slightly less than an inch of thread movement against wood grain so by the time the pin is at height, the top layer of the block has seen a lot of thread go by. Three or four turns cutting threads in the block or a single pass down? I think the hammer is an obvious choice.

Hammering has always left me with measurably more torque. I see poorly replaced strings on pins that have been unscrewed enough and returned and the pins are always looser. And, on the occasional times I have had to try twice to make a splice work, even though I only unscrew the pin 1/2 turn to do this, that pin will usually show some loss of torque.
regards,

I've been told that hammering any pin on a grand is a bad idea because the wrestplank is not supported underneath. Right, kind of right, or wrong?

Also, screwing them in creates unwanted heat.
And the nature of the thread design - shallow and 3 or 4 abreast favors driving them in for a good feel.
A palm nailer works good.

No, it is not appropriate to screw in a tuning pin, even if you do it slowly to avoid the heat.

Tuning pin holes are not smooth and polished. That is important to note. If you screw in a tuning pin, you are going to smooth out the hole. If it heats up in the process, you'll burnish it even more. The tapping or driving process roughens the hole in the way that it needs to be done. It is also a self-reaming and fitting process, when used over time.

In the end, driving pins gives a better feel and consistency than slowly screwing in the pins. There is no benefit to the performance of the pin by slowly screwing it in.

You always support the pin block when hammering in the pins. Here's the device I used to use:

Pin Block Support

You can go one step farther and support the key frame in the same area your supporting the pin block.
No market device for that but a small hydraulic jack with spacer works fine.

[/quote]

You can go one step farther and support the key frame in the same area your supporting the pin block.
No market device for that but a small hydraulic jack with spacer works fine.[/quote]

I think you mean the key bed? Not the key frame right?

Thanks

I think you mean the key bed? Not the key frame right?

Thanks[/quote]

I think you mean the key bed? Not the key frame right?

Thanks[/quote]

I think you mean the key bed? Not the key frame right?

Thanks[/quote]

Yup
Thx for the correction.

hi,Harry Dane
No one can categorically state WHAT is piano's PIN there. Since there is no statistics, what happens to the pinblock when we either hammering pin or screw in it's. Simple formal logic dictates that a pin is not a nail. We always screwing it into, not pull the pin out of the pinblock. Why? Because EVERY piano pin has screw- thread there. If we can screw the pin out of the pinblock, then we can screw it in initially even too. So we have a pin as metal technical screw here. How do we install any metal screw initially? That's right: we must screw it in. We do not hammering it's never there.
By the way, when we have tune the piano, our palm power goes to the pin, which, due to the presence of threads, radiality moves along the wood grooves of the hole.
My realization of this formal truth led to the creation me of a technique for tighten the lost pin using cardboard. The principal solution was to screw the pin into the hole, not hammer it in there.http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3007272/1.html
Therefore, I believe that it is always necessary to screw in the pin. Yes, it's slow, dreary and even risky, I guess. This is the logic of common sense, I'm think
regards,

Just to put a kink in Maximillyan simple formal logic, in German, it is called a tuning-nail (Stimmnagel) and in both English and German is it called a tuning hammer (Stimmhammer), because it use to be used to hammer in and adjust the nail during tuning. A nail is not a screw. A pin is not a screw. A pin can be a nail.

In all fairness, Maximillyan needs to screw in the pin because he uses cardboard instead of the traditional approach of replacing the pins with longer or thicker pins. If he pounds in the pin with cardboard, he'll mess up the cardboard. That is a different situation than working with wood. He doesn't replace the pins as is traditionally taught. He does his own thing. Mainly, because he doesn't have access to supplies in his part of the world.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong, piano411
Yes, I know these names in English and German (Stimmhammer) where it's device for regulating a pin has a meaning like a "hammer" and, accordingly, the process is to hammering there.
In Russian it sounds: "ключ для настройки" can literally be translated as a key for regulation.
However, the history of this name lies in the 16-18 centuries, when the clavichord and harpsichord were used in Europe only . It was at that time that the "tuning device for the tuner" received its lexical meaning. The medieval tuner initially moved the pin in a circle one of side that hammer and, if it refused to have the required tighten, then a tuner "struck one or more blows on the pin with the back of the hammer." Simply put, the modern tuning hammer does not look like "its medieval ancestor". It does not have side back kick knob. The medieval pin did not have a groove-carving either. It had a smooth surface absolutely.
The modern pin has rightlyty screwing thread, therefore, it is primarily a screw in its physical essence. As I wrote earlier: "there to hammering in any threaded connection never." Screwing off in and screwing into here. The modern English name "pin" is not correct, because it is not a nail. In English it should sound: "tuning screw for adjusting the string tension", I'm think.

Max uses the cardboard method not because he ignores modern tuner's tradition, where re-pining, use CA and ect. The basis of the cardboard method is the only possible harmless repair action for part wood detals piano ( a pinblock and a bush) where the pin is metal screw,

Yep,Factories use machine to install pins.But maybe the machine punches the pin first, twist it 3 or 4 turns to make coils in the end.

I m not sure , i vent seen one myself.
Actually i m very curious how it works.
Do you believe it is being twisted in all way along?
Regards
Harry

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fol8KJuQKSc&fromveve=1

Look at this please,pretty interesting.
probably it is the only video where you can see a man screw in the pins on piano.

Wow, that is a perfect example of what never to do to a pinblock. Granted, it is fast, and it get the job done. In the name of science, I have done that before, as well as the slow screw. If you don't care what the pins feel like after their installed, you can do it that way, but doing so will get you pins that a jumpy. If you want smoothing feeling pins, they have to be hammered in. Factories can use presses to press the pin in, but that is doing the same thing. The inside of the tuning hole needs to be roughed up. Again, traditionally a conical reamer was used to even pre-rough up the hole before pounding in the pin.

Max, a tuning pin is not a metal screw. Again, this is called a tuning nail in German for a reason. For all of piano's history, the people in that area of the world called it a nail, and used it as a nail. Brand new pianos had their nails driven into the piano. This is documented in literature and in vocabulary. If you want to qualify yourself as a master piano builder, you have to demonstrate that you can properly drive the tuning pins. This is not a modern tuner's tradition, this is a piano builder's tradition since we've been building pianos. There is a reason that it is done this way. The factory presses that push in the pins is arguably more consistent, absent good technique. Nonetheless, we don't screw in the tuning nails with a power drill for a reason. If anyone wants to know what that reason is, they should try it. In fact, try it more than once. Once you have experience installing pinblocks in new or old pianos in different methods, you'll know why tradition is the way that it is. If you want to install cardboard into a new pinblock, and screw it in, that's a unique approach. But, I wouldn't go that direction. Cardboard can be a fix, if that is what you want to do, but it is not how you build a piano.

The threads are on the pins for us to be able to get the pin out! If they weren't threaded like that, it would be extremely difficult to get them out. There is a reason for everything.