[pianotech] Broken Drill Bit in Bridge

[Ron Nossaman]

On 8/11/2012 6:09 PM, Terry Farrell wrote:
> Ummmm, a "friend" asked me to pose the question: How best to extract
> a broken drill bit from a bridge pin hole? The top (broken end) of
> the bit is about 1/8" below the top of the bridge. Any suggestions
> short of gouging out a hunk of bridge?
>
> If I get a good suggestion, I'll pass it on to my "friend".  ;-(


While nothing this dumb has ever happened to me, I did have a dream 
once. In it, I used a small piece of the unhardened water hard drill rod 
I keep around for making punches, tiny chisels, and other dream tools, 
to make a hollow drill. I chucked a piece of 3/16" in the drill press, 
and with a bit in my drill press vise, drilled out the center to 
whatever it was that cleared the buried bit adequately. Then, I filed 
some crude teeth on the end, and drilled down around the bit, cursed it 
out of the hole, and plugged it with a spinet shank, which I then soaked 
in epoxy or CA (I might have had that dream twice, years apart).

It's not hard, and you ought to have some drill rod of various sizes 
around anyway, to get you past the odd nightmare.
Ron N