Becket breaker? - Technique

[John Delacour]

At 18:25 -0400 7/7/08, Al Guecia wrote:

>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 
>screwdriverÊwhich 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.

The method I use is similar.  A whole turn is usually more than 
enough -- I turn the pin something over 1/2 turn to bring the becket 
to a suitable position to allow unobstructed extraction. Having 
protected the soundboard, I then cut the strings in the speaking 
length near the front bridge, lever out the becket with a stout awl 
and hook the wire off the pins, which is usually possible with a 
single motion of the awl.  There is no wire on the piano by the time 
I begin to extract the pins.  The only reason I work on one section 
at a time is that I quickly get bored of one process and like to vary 
the work as much as possible.

JD