[pianotech] Removing Strings

[Ed Foote]

Shawn writes:

>>My only complaint about the becket breaker is that it is prone to drive the coil or the string itself, within the webbing, into the plate and chip the finish.  It can leave you with a handful if not many chips and dents in the plate and if the plate needs to maintain its condition you might skip the becket breaker.
Also my experience has been that becket breakers work best with some tension in the string.  If there is not enough to hold the coil tight on the pin it won't break the becket everytime.  Of course the more tension that is on the string the more danger there is of flying piano wire, which is super sharp, so be careful.


These becket breakers do wonderful jobs of getting the strings off, and there are some things that make it go better.  First off, make sure that the inside edge of the hole is sharp. This is easily done by touching the bottom to a grinding wheel.  
Second, make sure that the tool is held at a slight angle, so that the edge is resting on just the becket, not the entire top of the coil. 
Third,  it doesn't take a mallet slamming down to break the string, just a very fast, sharp, rap.  I use a little ballpeen hammer and rarely does the becket survive long enough to drive the pin into the block. I only want the tool to move .035" or so, as that is all it takes to break the wire.  I do lower the tension slightly but the coils need to be tight on the pin to make for a clean break. I then use a 1/2" drill to remove the pins from amid the coils, afterwhich the strings are easily removed. 
Regards,
 
 Ed Foote RPT
http://www.piano-tuners.org/edfoote/index.html
 
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