Becket breaker? - Technique

[AlliedPianoCraft]

Kendall & Diane,

The system I have used and I think someone has mentioned this on the list, is to turn all the pins out one complete turn. I them use a screwdriver which ground down a to narrow the tip to remove the becket from the tuning pin. I then proceed to remove the tuning pins with a drill. Once all the tuning pins are removed, I cut the coils and remove the strings.

Just another way to do it.

Al Guecia




From: Kendall Ross Bean 
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 3:41 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org 
Subject: Becket breaker? - Technique


Diane~

Hi~

I still use a becket breaker, for the reasons that Allen and the others have described.

I hope I didn't misunderstand what you wrote, but bear in mind that even though you may not have completely severed the becket, you may have nicked it enough so that it broke easily when you backed out the pin with the drill. I have found that beckets I have not tried to break with the becket breaker first will often not break with the drill. (-depends on the wire, and how brittle it is.)

The proper technique with the becket breaker is something that eluded me for some time, until I finally realized what the issue was. Until I discovered it, it was very frustrating trying to use the tool. If you are finding it difficult to break beckets on some pianos, the following may help you. (I noticed that in consulting Reblitz's latest book on servicing tuning and rebuilding, he recommends prying the beckets out after loosening the coils, and doesn't even mention the becket breaker, perhaps because for many people it really isn't an easy tool to learn to use.)

Once you get the technique down, it really only takes 10 to 15 minutes to break all the beckets, and I think it makes things a lot neater and more efficient. 

(Plus it's a good workout!)

I also prefer leaving coils on string ends where I can, because I feel it makes them less hazardous in disposal (less apt to poke someone's eye out.)

I was training my daughter in how to use the becket breaker (she is apprenticing with me) and even when I taught her what to do, it still took her a little while to get the technique down and to understand why sometimes it worked for her and other times it didn't.  Now she can do it pretty fast (although like me, she still fails sometimes to sever an occasional one and has to go back, reposition the tool, and hit it again. Usually I find that (when I have been restringing regularly) I can pretty much tell by sound and feel whether the becket has truly been severed or not.

I have generally had pretty good success with the becket breaker, (once I learned the tricks), and it does keep the plates from getting scratched up and gouged by broken string ends when spinning the pins out. (Even in the agraffe section of grands, where you have to cut the loops off anyway to get them through the agraffes, I still break the beckets). 

Here are some tips on how I do it, which may (or may not!) help you.

I don't know what kind of hammer you use, but I have found it has to have some weight and momentum, ideally. I use the same 2 1/2 or 3 lb sledge I use for restringing, but you may find a somewhat lighter hammer will work also. 

Perhaps more important,  I make sure that when I place the becket breaker it's tilted toward the becket, so that its cutting edge is right on the point where the becket enters the hole in the pin. (See attached photo.)  It's like the two blades of a pair of scissors. The inside edge of the becket breaker is one blade, and the side of the hole in the tuning pin is the other. If the edge of the breaker tool is not right up flush against the tuning pin where the wire enters the hole, it's like trying to cut something with a bad pair of scissors. You want to make sure the inside edge of the breaker is right at the intersection of the wire and the hole. (They don't give you any instructions or tell you this when you buy the tool. As a matter of fact, someone ought to write a book on how to use common restringing (and other) tools.)

The becket breaker you usually get from the piano supply houses was designed "oversize" to accomodate a number of different size pins. The ideal shearing tool would fit the pin much more closely but since what we get is a "universal" tool we have to adapt. So you have to personally make sure it's business edge contacts the right spot, which means you have to tilt it slightly to make sure it cuts the becket right at the point where it enters (some people would say "exits") the hole. What happens when you don't make sure the edge of the breaker is right at this junction is that horrible thing where it pulls part of the becket out of the hole and bends it down instead of making a neat cut, trapping the bent becket between the inside of the tool and the tuning pin. Then the fun begins: trying to get the stuck tool off the pin. If you're not feeling strong that day, this can seemingly take forever. This also tends to happen more often on those pianos where they have put the infamous "coil lock" on the pin, requiring special diligence.

Tilting the breaker toward the becket requires an awareness of where the becket is, so it's also easier to do if the previous stringer had the beckets all lined up in the same position, or, if you kept them in alignment/aligned them when you lowered the tension on the strings before shearing the beckets. (You do lower the string tension first, don't you?)  It sounds to me like some technicians don't bother to lower the string tension before either cutting the strings or breaking the beckets. (Personally I don't think this is a good idea - In my experience the beckets are far easier to break when the coils aren't tight, and are extremely difficult or impossible to break if they are. I unwind the pins a quarter turn each (in the proper sequence) when lowering the string tension. This loosens the coils enough to make the beckets easier to break.)

When using a heavier hammer it's important to make sure you don't cause the same problem you're trying to avoid by hitting the tool so hard it drives the coil all the way down into the plate finish! After I got the rhythm it was fairly easy to just raise the sledge a few inches above the tool and let it drop. (See attached photo). Once you get a feel for the exact amount of effort it takes to break the becket, you will be amazed at how quickly it goes.

-and yes, when I first discovered I could snap the string with the drill I was tempted to dispense with the becket breaker too, until I discovered I was spending far longer patching up the dings and gouges that spinning/snapping string ends left in the plate/soundboard/bridges/me. 

One last thought: Even though you are not exerting the same pounding force as when driving new pins, I still think it's a good idea to support the pinblock in a grand when breaking beckets. I feel it also makes it easier to shear the beckets when the pinblock isn't flexing.

Hope this helps.

~Kendall Ross Bean
PianoFinders

e-mail: kenbean at pianofinders.com



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