Agraffe Repair Technique

[Tom Cole]

It was a familiar sight, today: a 1926 S & S "B" with all 3-strings of a
tenor unison holding its damper aloft. Familiar, but having read here
and heard elsewhere the many tales of broken easy outs (and hearts) that
have resulted from this seldom-performed task, the prospect still gives
one pause. It is a job that needs to be done right the first time. And I
don't have time to do it right the second time.

The major problem with easy outs, as I see it, is that if you drive a
tapered tool into a hole drilled in an orphaned stud, you will tighten
the fit of the brass fragment in the hole. The more you force it into
the stud to get a bite, the less it will be willing to come out, ala a
Chinese finger puzzle. The trick is to get a purchase without swelling
the brass.

The first thing I tried, after soaking the threads with Liquid Wrench,
was to tap with an awl and hammer, the awl pointing in a somewhat
counterclockwise direction. Sometimes this will break it loose, after
which the screwdriver ground to a fishtail shape is useful to spin it
free. It didn't budge. The two-pronged screwdriver was equally useless
against decades of oxidation.

Plan B, I thought, would involve drilling a hole for an easy out.
Although my entire collection of easy outs was conveniently squirreled
away in my shop, I drilled the hole anyway, hoping that something in my
several toolkits would volunteer for duty. 

I drilled the hole as vertically and centered as I could, guided by a
well-centered dimple from the awl, and I drilled it all the way through
so that I would have some hope of tapping out a broken extractor or
drill bit from below. 

A tool box search produced a rarely-used, 3-cornered, Hale reamer ground
for a combination handle. The part that fits in the handle is the usual
1/4" diameter, then the shaft steps down to .167" and in the final 3/4",
three flats are ground, coming to a sharp point. A similar-sized
screwdriver could be modified with a grinder.

I tapped the tool firmly into the hole with a hammer to get a good bite.
After attaching the combination handle, I worked the tool back out of
the hole and reinserted it without tapping but applied some force with
hand pressure. Grabbing the shaft with vicegrips, I could then start to
twist the tool, first in one direction and then the opposite, again and
again with increasing pressure, until the stud began to move.

And move it did. Once it was broken loose, I had no problem backing it
out the rest of the way.

I finished the job in the usual fashion except for one thing: I left the
strings in the old agraffe to keep them in order. Since they passed
under the bass strings, I was glad not to have to wrangle with these
wriggly wires.

Tom
-- 
Thomas A. Cole, RPT
Santa Cruz, CA
mailto:tcole@cruzio.com