Bending & Twisting Of Tuning Pins - Piano Tuning Hammer Technique I HOWARD PIANO INDUSTRIES 

Hi John,Congrats on your progress with learning to tune. It is important though to play the keys firmly when tuning to make sure you stabilize the string tension. Just plucking the string won’t accomplish this. This is also part of achieving a stable tuning.

Thanks Jim, This is a concept I just recently learned as well, so I was glad to share it with everyone.

Thanks for watching John. I'm glad you enjoyed our videos!

Thanks for sharing Lucas. Your explanation I'm sure will be helpful to many.

You are right, I'm still tuner student, but my tunings gained a lot of stability after I realized those same things you mentioned. It's exactly the way you described of being able to twist the pin same amounts off sharp and flat when the pin is in the middle, and staying position. After that some test blows and if it stays, it will stay. I'm pretty satisfied with my lever technique, and even though it's still developing, I think I'm on the right way. Maybe I will also try some impact techniques at some point.

The goal finally is to have the pin a little more stressed than the wire (the pin get torque from the wire in any case) so the test is that you need 2x more force to LOWER the pitch by bowing a little the pin, than to raise it (it raise more easily than it lowers) WHen the pin is set very tight (that mean there is residual twist in the pin that lock it in place but tend to pull sharp ( a hair) , in fact you cannot lower the pitch by twisting it as the pin is twisted at the max acceptable. (in fact I pass the good spot a hair and release the pin, then the wire pitch raise a tiny bit while the pin untwist) talking of may be one degree or 2 on release The small extra tension is not enough to pass the friction of the bearing points, but will be active in case of a strong blow, it will put the tension back to the speaking length after the strong wave received from a very strong blow playing. Most concert tunings leave the piano with that security reserve that mean if you have to repair the tuning you will more often find strings that are a hair high than the opposite. Putting them back where they belong takes only a very little push on the lever while the playing hand send enough energy to have the tensions equalize. (not absolutely playing extra strong, enough sensitivity in the lever hand allow to feel exactly what is happening in the pin, wher it is locked (from its very bottom or on a longer portion in the pinblock) I learned first to be absolutely aware of the plane of rotation of the pin, and hold the lever making motions in that plane only. But now I read enough the pin deformation, I can take the end of the lever with 3 fingers, not locking it in the plane, I could even tune by just pulling on the lever the position of the lever vs the string make the pin twist more or less. We may not forget that the pinblock resiliency play a role too the pin does not turn as in a tight non moveable media, the pinblock add its elasticity to the one of the pin.

Lucas Brookins, RPT s

Lucas Brookins, RPT Je

The Impact Tuning Hammer can be used on grand pianos but it doesn't have the same effect as on uprights as you don't have the gravity factor working for you because the lever is in a horizontal position rather than a vertical position.

Thank you I was wondering about that too.

Shoninger piano

You want to try and reduce the amount of bending that is done as the goal is to twist the pin in the pinblock. Positioning the handle of your tuning hammer toward the back of the piano will help the bending to be side to side rather than front to back which will reduce the amount of affect it will have on the pitch of the string.

I use a 5 degree head angle which works fine, but the 10 degree angle would work just as well.

depends of the goal, when I raise, I want to twist the pin much and to read how much it may twist befor moving, so I hold the lever at 90 degree on a grand piano, then, to set the pin and release the extra twist I could have left, I orient the lever from 12:30 to 14:00. Just on release, the pin untwist yet a lot, but some twisting the other direction allows to install residual twist in the pin that make it very stiff and as "glued" in the pin block . Hope that helps (many tuners only add stress by making the final tune with a slightly bowed pin, that pull on the string on release bu stay bowed a hair then. It is way more effective to use the pin twist in that intention the pin will be bowed too but I do not bow it while tuning. The string have yeta lot of tension to give to help keep the pin in its position. Hope that may help. PS sorry this was not your question , I dont like a too strong angle, but a small one oblige to use extra long tips that are not ideal to master the twist and bow motions (you have too much force with a long tip) I think I use 10 degree (standard Yamaha tuning lever)

Abraham Wu I use a 45 degree angle when tuning a piano!

For sure, lowering pitch will naturally result in more instability than raising pitch. Basically, when you tune from a lower pitch to a higher pitch you are twisting or bending the pin in a direction that will help stability rather than create it.

Considering it hasn’t been tuned in that long, I’m surprised it’s only off by that much. Rust could pose a problem. The only thing that you may want to do is to pull the pitch slightly flat before bringing it up to pitch to help reduce the risk of strings breaking. What this does is breaks any rust bond at the termination points.

@@howardpianoind Thanks for this advice. Our piano tuner (he died in 1968) had a liquid he would put on at the contact point of the string and the agraffe of a piano that had gone a long time without a tuning. Have you ever heard of this?

Yes, you would use Protek CLP for this, but don’t get it near the tuning pins.

There are just 3 per note. It may just appear that there are more.

Yes, the Levitan professional lever does prevent most of this, but it doesn't work on upright pianos.

Many piano technicians who use the Levitan Professional intentionally bend the pin as part of their stabilization technique. The tool can be used either way, depending on the preference of the technician. Dan Levitan, the inventor of the Levitan Professional, bends the pin slightly when he tunes.

But Jon, how do you feel about doing slow movements? Yesterday, I tuned a piano for the first time and when I went to try to make quick moves, I felt there wasn't enough strength to change the frequency of the string the way I wanted. Do you have any tips?

@@joaozitchu1222 Sorry, I wish I had a good answer for you. But I've only tuned my own piano the one time.

It will affect the strings around it to some degree.

howardpianoind Would lowering the entire bass section be too risky?

It would be best to just do one or a few strings at once.

howardpianoind should I only restore tension on the strings again one at a time as well? And about how long should I leave between each string? And thank you for the advice, you are doing my 1903 grand and me a lot of good!

Yes, the idea is to not remove the tension from one section of the piano and leave the tension up on the rest of the piano.

I'm not sure why they call this a tuning hammer. It must have gotten the name somewhere along the way, but I'm not sure about the reason.

The name comes from historical uses. The “tuning hammer” was originally used to hammer down the pins in harpsichord. Later, piano factory tuning hammers were struck on the directly on head-many factory-style tuning hammers are still like this. Today, tuning is generally done with a “tuning hammer” that has the flexibility to interchange tip sizes and angles. This increased flexibility in design means the “hammer” can no longer hammer or be hammered upon without causing damage. Some tuners call this a tuning lever to distinguish it from a factory tuning hammer.