tool,s

[Joe & Penny Goss]

Hi all,
Yesterday, working on a grand piano, the F3 plain wire string broke at the
coil. Nuts said I 
Seeing that the broken string was the one with the longest waste end I
decided to tie rather than replace the string. It was a tough repair due to
the closeness of the pins to each other.
To get the end of the string back into the eye of the pin hole required
backing the pin out of the hole about an inch. This is not my usual
procedure and caused me much concern as  how was I going to get the pin
level with the others as there was no hammer available.

Last summer there was some discussion on the list about pulling bridge,
balance or front rail pins with vice grip pliers adapted with the
adjustment screw being replaced with a longer bolt so that one could use a
weight like the Mehaffey coil setter or other sliding weight. 

So there was my tool, vice grip hammer, just setting there in my tool kit
ready to be tried!
It worked great! Even better than a hammer as there was no chance that the
tool would bounce off and hit the nice finish and make an ugly mark.

One change that I intend to make is to drill out a small recess in the head
of the bolt so that it will seat better on the end of the pin and not slip
off.
Joe Goss
See my tools at        http://www.primenet.com/~imatunr/