Becket breaker? - Technique, and Tools for pin removal

[John Delacour]

At 12:28 -0400 9/7/08, AlliedPianoCraft wrote:

>Kendall Ross Bean wrote
>
>>Thanks for the "tip". A ground down screwdriver seems likeÊa 
>>goodÊtool for prying out beckets.
>>
>>Question: When prying out the beckets, do you take the coil off the 
>>tuning pin as well before backing the pin out? Or do you just leave 
>>the coil on the pin?
>
>I leave the coil on the tuning pin.ÊI used to pull the coils off the 
>pins, but it was a lot of work and you would need to cut the coils 
>before you could pull the pins. Very cramped with the tuning pins in 
>place.
>
>>When I haveÊtried the latter the becket for some reason often gets 
>>caught back in the eye (hole) of the tuning pin as you spin the pin 
>>out, or sometimes tangles up in the coil, and winds the string back 
>>up the opposite direction, often snapping it before you can stop 
>>the drill.
>
>I pull to becket out of the pin and make sure it's below the hole in 
>the tuning pin. Works best if youÊturn theÊtuning pin out 1 full 
>turn before you start.

That means you are doing about 100 full turns of tight pins that you 
don't need to, since only 1/2 turn is needed.  That's an awful lot of 
time and effort wasted, and you're wasting even more later.  I think 
what you're missing is that if you cut the wire first in the speaking 
length, which you're going to have to do anyway, there is no 
resistance from the wire to prevent your removing the becket and the 
coil in one swift movement and you get rid of the wire into the bin 
into the bargain.

<http://pianomaker.co.uk/technical/string_removal/>.

While you are turning the pin a whole turn and "making sure the 
becket is below the hole" and all that, I am well into the next pin 
and besides that I don't have 220 useless and temperamental bits of 
wire cluttering up the wrestplank when I come to take the pins out.

>>What's everyone else using?  -Just curious.
>
>I have been using an old Sears 1/2" industrial drill. Slow speed and 
>very powerful. It's about 30 years old and works like new

I use a modern 500 watt Peugeot drill, but almost any reversing drill 
now has variable speed and variable torque and an accelerating 
trigger so you can set the thing up to work just as you want. 
They're not expensive -- there's no need to spend more than $60.

JD