Day 75 – Saturday, January 8 – Again

Goals: Replace untuneable pins with larger pins and rough tune first set of wires.

Music: Louis Armstrong’s “Complete RCA Victor Recordings”, discs 1 and 2.

I thought that at last, this would be a simple job, but I was wrong.

I found the strings that equate to middle ‘A’, on which one of the pins would not hold tune. I replaced it with one of the larger pins that arrived this week, and that worked fine. I rough tuned to the string to 440 Hz, plucking it with a credit card. So happened the next string over also had one pin that would not hold tune. Took it out, inserted a larger pin, and,

Still untuneable.

Cover your ears because here it comes:

Shit!

I literally stood there and thought for the next fifteen minutes. Just standing, staring at the piano, sagging my head, thinking: Start over? Gut it? Buy another set of even larger pins? Try some bushings? Try some shims? Start over? Gut it? Shims? Bushings? Start over? Gut?

I went online to investigate more about bushings and shims. I stumbled across a do-it-yourself shim method using sandpaper and varnish, which I happened to have on hand. I have nothing to lose by trying it at this point. So I spent the rest of the work session prepping the sandpaper, which involves varnishing the back of it to stiffen it. We’re going to cut tapered strips that are 3/8” at the top and ¼” at the bottom, insert those sandpaper side to the pin block, push it so it holds itself in place, then set the pin in and turn it until it seats. If this doesn’t work, I’ll have to splurge for actual bushing material, which is only a couple of bucks, although, I don’t see why the sandpaper shouldn’t work. Here’s the varnished sandpaper before and after cutting:

Keeping fingers firmly crossed.