Becket breaker? - Technique

[CHARLES BECKER]

oops  forgot about the agraffes. It would help to cut the wires in that 
section.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Delacour" <JD at Pianomaker.co.uk>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 7:06 PM
Subject: Re: Becket breaker? - Technique


> 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 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.
>
> 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
>
>
>