David: That is a full and detailed answer. Much appreciated. I have yet to find the drywall screw solution to be effective in the majority of cases, and almost always cut the shank flush and drill it out. The angle of the hammer bore can be duplicated on the tail of the hammer and followed by eye to get it relatively close. There is always a tiny bit of slop in the drilling job, and this allows for more precision when gluing up. You can also clamp the hammer either to a neighbor or between neighbors while the glue sets up. Paul In a message dated 9/11/2010 4:33:51 A.M. Central Daylight Time, da88ve at gmail.com writes: I have a brad-point 7/32" bit with a hex drive end that fits my cordless screwdriver. With old cedar shanks, I don't try to pull out the old shank; I just start drilling. One can feel when the bit hits the harder maple at the bottom of the hole. But with maple shanks, I use the method of first drilling a #39 hole into the old shank, then dribbling a few drops of wallpaper remover/vinegar mixture into the hole, then driving a short drywall screw into the hole. Then the screw is heated with a cigarette lighter or mini-torch until it steams and/or bubbles, then the screw & shanks are pulled out as a unit with the shank extractor. This works most of the time, and when it does, is superior to using one of the drill bit guides available. But when it doesn't, then I drill it out with the bit mentioned above. I keep a little bottle of the remover liquid, an eyedropper, & the #39 drill in a metal Band-Aid box in the car. The butt is replaced in the action, then the new shank inserted and marked for length with a neighboring hammer as reference. I cut it to length with a small hacksaw or Swiss Army knife saw blade, knurl both ends either with the sawblade or the edge of a file, mark which way the grain will face (baseball bat label theory), do a dry fit, then swirl glue onto the ends and after assembling, hold things in place until they set. I'll admit I don't have a great way of duplicating the proper angle in the hammer molding of angled hammers and am not impressed with most of the jigs available. If the old shanks pulls out, great -- it's already "pre-drilled." But if it doesn't, you have to guesstimate as close as possible, or buy one of the awkward, not-as-accurate-as-they-claim jigs. I usually use the shank clamp and extractor tool to pull the old shank out of the molding. If too short, I saw it off flush, hold the molding with a Vise-grips and drill it out, "eyeballing" the angle. --David Nereson, RPT ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Staples" <mastaples at gmail.com> To: <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2010 12:02 AM Subject: [pianotech] Field hammer shank replacement > When you have to replace a broken, crumbly (cedar?) vertical > hammer shank in > the field, what method and tools do you use to do the job in > an efficient > and accurate manner? > > Thanks, > > Michael Staples > PTG associate member > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100911/3bfd9a22/attachment.htm>
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