Tapered and Micro-thread Pins

There continues to be considerable debate about micro-thread pins vs. traditional tapered harp tuning pins. Most arguments tend to come from people who have had a bad experience with tuning pins which were not properly installed in the first place. Both types of tuning pins are excellent mechanisms when properly installed. They both have advantages and disadvantages.

Tapered pins, as shown in Diagram 1, are the traditional pins used on musical instruments through the early centuries (harps, violins, lutes, etc.). The taper is a wedge, which allows for adjustment of tension when turning the pin. The more you push against the wedge, the harder it lodges in the neck and the harder it is to turn. It's easy to wind a new string by releasing tension, winding the string on and reseating the taper against the neck. Wear on the hole allowing the pin to go in too far is easily repaired by using paper shims or putting a thin coat of glue on the inside wall of the hole, giving it a few hours to dry and replacing the original pin.

There are several disadvantages to the use of tapered pins. The simplest is that the wedge pressure may release all at once due to any number of reasons including transportation vibrations, like those in a car. If this happens, the string will slacken and, at least for a short time after re-stringing, the string will continue go flat until it fully re-stretches. If a pin continues to slip, see Slipping Pins for more detailed repair information. The biggest disadvantage of tapered pins is that they weaken the harmonic arch. Unlike zither pins, tapered pins require drilling all the way through the neck, removing considerably more wood from the arch. If you have ever split firewood, you have used a wedge. Tapered pins are wedges and if you have 34 strings on your harp, you have 34 splitting wedges at work. It is no coincidence that a split in the harmonic arch of some harps is a relatively common repair. All well-made modern harps accommodate the mechanical degradation of whatever pins are selected for a specific harp but it is worth remembering that a 34 string harp has 102 holes in the harmonic arch (34 for the tuning pins, 34 for the bridge pins and 34 sharping lever screw holes).

A micro-thread pin, often called zither or piano-style, has very small threads which generate friction against the wood. (See Diagram 2) This thread works well and will not break loose if jarred or vibrated. That is why pianos, harpsichords, hammered dulcimers, autoharps, zithers and psalteries use them. There is an opinion in the harp community that micro-thread pins are somehow an inferior pin. Our lutherie does build some of our harps with tapered pins to accede to this bias but, in terms of mechanical integrity and longevity of the harp, the concept that tapered pins are superior to micro-threadded pins is without foundation. Piano makers, who build instruments which endure under much greater string tension than do harps, laugh at the idea that a tapered pin might be a better mechanical solution. A $60,000 Steinway is made with micro-thread pins. The installation of zither pins removes much less wood from the neck of the harp and the friction propagated by a micro-thread is inherently more mechanically stable than that of a wedge, drastically reducing the splitting force on the harmonic arch. When installed correctly on a harp, micro-thread pins rarely strip-out and they are also less expensive. If the type of micro-thread pins available today were available during the historically popular periods for harps, it is doubtful tapered pins would ever have been used. Though modern playing techniques have evolved around the tapered pin, they could just as easily have arisen around a micro-thread pin. Tapered pins are a habit, not an advantage. See Stringing Your Harp and Slipping Pins for information applicable to the care and feeding of these pins.

Either pin can be effective. I prefer the look of the traditional tapered pin and certainly it has a strong historical base and following in the harp community. Equally important, current playing technique supports the tapered pin and that is a valid reason to use them. Micro-thread pins continue to gain following as their mechanical and cost advantages are better understood.

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