broken screw

[Paul]

Ron
I got called in to repair a cross-threaded cap screw that Young Chang ( I
think) uses to hold the legs on their grand. No luck finding a replacement
screw, but the hardware store clerk said he could make a "tap" out of the
original. He ground a small groove just to the right of center on the
leading edge of the cap screw to form an auger point, just like the new
auger point self drilling wood screws. I ran it back in to the piano. It
cleaned the threads in the T nut and worked beautifully to smooth the hole
and threads. I've tried this trick with other jammed threads and found it to
work well in most cases.

Paul Chick
----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Nossaman <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 4:01 PM
Subject: broken screw


> Wasn't thinking, broke a screw installing new shanks and flanges (pressing
> the washer into the flange). Dug out a box of new screws, replaced the old
> ones I'd already installed, and finished the set. Life is good again,
> except for that broken screw. I prick punched the center of the shank
> (slightly below the surface), center drilled it a bit with an 1/8" center
> drill, and drilled about 1/4" down into the screw with a #58 (first little
> one I came to). I ground a three cornered point on a 2 1/2" sheet rock
> screw (very hard steel), drove it into the #58 hole in the flange screw
> until the corners bit, and turned the broken screw out with a Phillips
> screwdriver. Very slick, and under ten minutes start to finish even with
> the five minutes of head scratching before I thought of the sheet rock
> screw. Absolutely no damage to the rail, hole, operator, or schedule, but
> the sheet rock screw was killed in the attempt. Seemed like a fair trade
to
> me. Try it sometime.
>
> Back to work.
>
> Ron N
>