Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Fried Chicken Syndrome

Try a new tuning pin.

I'd follow Ed's suggestion, whatever solvent/cleaner you choose. Dragging a cloth through the tuning-pin hole with a little cleaner/solvent, but dragging a lot of clean material after it, makes the most sense.
I actually like the brake-cleaner suggestion, for that matter. Stuff will eat the oil instantly, and does dry very quickly and completely.

1. Pull the pin
2. REPLACE the tuning-pin bushing!
With any luck, a lot of your oil will have pulled off into the pin-bushing. You don't want to drive a clean pin back through that one.
3. Check your remaining tuning pins with a micrometer, too. Select the largest one of that size (...they ain't the same, if you have not done this before).
You may get a few thousands larger, and the little extra insurance can't hurt. Minimum? Clean the old one really really really well.
4. Avoid fried foods!

Good-luck, sir!
The world will continue to rotate,
don't worry!

How about wiping it away with a bit of red wine

You don't want to thin the oil you want to remove the oil completely from the wood or whatever. a little acetone and cat litter or oil-dry which is mashed up will suck oil right out of wood. The key is when using other things the object is not to press the contaminant deeper into the wood pores

Thanks guys for all the advice!

Rob suggested to get waffles to go with that chicken. I think the sticky syrup could make matters worse.

I think what I'll do is reenact the pin mishap.

I have a piece of the same pin-block mtrl. I'll dill about four holes, eat some Deli-Works fried chicken, and then drive four pins in.

I'll then try some of the ideas you guys came up with.

I figure it's better to practice a little before I attempt it on the piano.

Now, if that ain't poetry, I've never been to Tennessee and neither has Ed Foote! And the wealth effect? Yep, exactly! A fresh box of new pins is like a bound treasure when you open it.

(I better quit or I may tear up.)

I dont know what I would do, but once the grease dissolved and cleaned, you can use a little rosin, dipping the tuning pin in powder, or diluted rosin, or swabbing (?) the hole with the rosin so to favor braking of the pin in wood (it is supposed to help when the tuning pin's thread will wear out).

However, I believe that most of the grip, ideally, is due to wood resiliency, and fiber orientation , against a tuning pin slightly deformed by string tension and human manipulation (hence the much better feel of maple or mixed wood blocks against Delignit).

I don't know about that. The last box of pins I opened did this as soon as I set it down:





Phil, didn't you build a new shop not too long ago? I may have missed it, but i never saw the finished product.

I am careful to tape up boxes of tuning pins before they fall apart.

It's pretty obvious that that box of pins was purposely ripped apart, just for fun.

If not you must of let it down REAL hard.

I don't know.

Ed Foote,

Any chance you could edit your post with the huge continuous word starting with "wire/cut/feed/bend/.."

Just put a few spaces in it or something.

You've completely messed up the page layout in this thread and made it unreadable on a small screen.

Thanks!

Drill out the hole for the next size larger pin.
If you luck out you may scrounge up a matched spare oversize pin with the 2.0 head -Larudee style.
Try drilling with a slightly modified jobber bit. Grind off the leading cutting edges, let the drill pull itself into the hole, hold the driver firm and spin it just a few revs to let the flutes do the cutting and back it out.
least likely to bugger up the hole.

If nothing works you could glue a Delignit dowel , the diameter of the bushing is enough . In case of open block this is not a discrete solution , of course..

Here's a nice piece of Pin-Block that was drilled at .256"

It's never had any pins in it.

I've driven four #2 pins in.

#1 pin was driven in prior to touching the chicken.

#2, #3, and #4 were driven in after touching the chicken.

At this point pin #1 turns very smoothly as it holds about 180 inch pounds

When applying torque to the other three pins I get up to about 140 inch pounds then they suddenly jump below 100 inch pounds until I stop turning them.

Any excuse to eat more fried chicken, eh?

Might mix up some of the stuff that Zsazsa Gabor used on Green Acres to make pancakes with. If it could be used as a head gasket on their old truck, surely it will make an old worn pin block work like new again.

Add a bit of lemon washing up liquid to the red wine and remove with water?