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Home > Piano Restoration > The Process > Step 10
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Step 10 |
A major component of the belly system is the pinblock. Pianos are tuned by manipulating tuning pins that are inserted into the pinblock. The pinblock must keep an extremely tight grip on each individual pin so that the piano holds it's tuning. Pinblocks are drilled all the way through and each pin is inserted to a depth of nearly 1 ½ inches with a heavy stringing hammer. When the piano is tuned to concert pitch A440 the pulling pressure on the pinblock and frame is approximately 25 tons. This is an amazing amount of stress and almost every older piano is in need of a replacement. Stress fractures and separations occur between the layers of maple.
Each pinblock must be cut from a larger slab of custom-made hard rock maple wood. We use multi-laminated blocks from quarter sawn hard rock maple with special glues between the layers. Our pinblocks are far superior to the older type. The material is heated to keep the moisture level constant and low; we hand fit, cut, file and shape each block to the plate of the piano. When perfectly fit, the block is screwed into place and the tuning pin location holes are marked for drilling. We drill our blocks outside the piano for higher accuracy. After drilling, the new pinblock is re-installed in the piano and prepared for stringing.
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