John Gill is Harp Technician for Melody’s Traditional Music. Cypress, Texas
John Gill is Harp Technician for Melody’s Traditional Music.
Cypress, Texas

Tuning pin maintenance is something you should do every time you tune. If the pin is too tight and difficult to turn, you need to pull it out a little bit with the tuning key while bringing the string to pitch. If the pin is slipping, it should be pressed inward while turning the pin. Loose pins may require a bit of muscle to twist/grind the pin snugly into the harp neck. The advice to “push in your pin” is meaningless unless you add a twisting motion to set the tapered pin snugly into the tapered hole.

For a stubbornly loose pin, place your left hand against the neck on the string side to brace yourself while pressing in with the tuning key. Push in as you take the string flat and continue pushing in as you reverse direction to bring the string back up to pitch. If the pin is still loose, get a stronger friend to repeat the process.

An additional bit of maintenance you can perform whenever you are replacing a string is to remove the corresponding pin and clean it off. This technique applies to pedals harps, lever harps using pedal harp strings, and Dusty Strings harps (but not folk harps with smooth pins). The pins on these harps have a rough or serrated surface hidden inside the neck, which helps keep them snug. Metal pins turning in the wooden neck accumulate sawdust over time. After you remove an old string and before you put on a new one, pull the pin out by unwinding it, wipe off the white residue, blow out the hole, reinsert the pin, and you are ready to put the new string on a fully functioning tuning pin. This will keep the pins operating smoothly over time.

Now for a couple of caveats: I have heard people suggest using a hammer to pound in a loose pin. Keep in mind a tapered pin is like a wedge—and wedges are used to split logs. Guess what? Those tuning pins reside in a wooden neck…

Rosin—great for traction with a violin bow but adding some to the tuning pin hole has more chance of causing your pin to lock up and become too tight to turn. A solution to that is to add a bit of soap. Now you are starting to create quite a mess! Best to keep it clean unless you feel the need to support your local harp technician.

—John Gill

—Erich Rase has been repairing, restoring, and regulating harps for more than 35 years. East Lansing, Mich.
—Erich Rase has been repairing, restoring, and regulating harps for more than 35 years.
East Lansing, Mich.

A slipping pin is the symptom, but the cause must be determined. Ninety percent of the time, the fix is as easy as unwinding the tuning pin (lowing the string tension) one quarter turn, then tuning the string up to pitch while simultaneously pushing the tuning key into the neck, forcing the tapered pin to go more deeply into the neck.

After periods of humid weather, the wood of the harp swells due to absorption. During winter months, harps tend to dry out and shrink due to the drier conditions (e.g. heating). This causes the tuning pin holes to become larger in diameter and to make the tuning pins looser, so they slip.

Whenever strings are changed, it is important to remove the pin from the harp, blow out the hole with a gust of breath, and ensure that there is no gunk remaining on the tuning pin itself. I use a dry cotton rag, being careful not to leave behind any lint or chemicals.

Another cause of tuning pin slippage is having a string wrapped around the tuning pin too many times. The pressure of the wrapped string resting against the neck will cause the pin to pry outwards into a loose position. On rare occasions, base wires will start to slip after many years of use due to worn out tuning pins. These need to be replaced most of the time (but this occurs primarily on very old harps).

—Erich Rase

Ray Mooers is the founder and co-owner of Dusty Strings, a lever harp and hammered dulcimer manufacturing company. Seattle, Wash.
Ray Mooers is the founder and co-owner of Dusty Strings, a lever harp and hammered dulcimer manufacturing company.
Seattle, Wash.

Harp mechanics can seem technical and mysterious, but sometimes the mystery belies the actual simplicity. A better understanding of how harp tuning pins are supposed to work can help you solve this. Rarely is this caused by faulty pins or a manufacturing defect.

There are two types of tuning pins in common use today: tapered and threaded.

Most lever and pedal harp manufacturers use taper pins so I’ll focus on this type. Taper pins are tapered steel cylinders: the small end has a hole for the string and the larger end has a square tip to engage with the tuning key. Look closely at your pins and you will see this difference in diameter from one end to the other. The pins are pushed into matching tapered holes formed in the harp neck using tapered reamers creating a wedging action. The resulting friction between the surface of the pins and the walls of the holes is what keeps the pins from slipping backwards under the tension load of the strings.

So, if you have slipping tuning pins, most likely you just need to re-seat your pins into the tapered holes more firmly to increase the friction. The best way to do this is to stand on the right side of the harp. Brace your left hand on the left side of the harp neck where the loose pin is, then with your right, put your key on the pin, down-tune the string about one half turn, then bring the string just up to pitch again while pushing the pin in hard with the tuning key. The screwing action should set the pin tighter in the hole. If you are not physically able to do this yourself, get help from someone with more upper body strength.

How do they get loose you ask? Well, low humidity for an extended period can contribute to this, improperly changed strings can tend to “push” the pins out of their holes, and bumps and falls can knock them loose. The best recommendation I can make if you are not able to solve the issue yourself is to contact the manufacturer of your harp who has all the technical knowledge and experience and would love to have the chance to talk with you! •

—Ray Mooers

Coming Up: How can I get faster at one-handed trills?