broken tap

[ANRPiano@AOL.COM]

A couple months ago I posted a request for suggestions on how to remove a 
broken tap from a plate.

First off thank you all (apologies for being late) for your many helpful 
suggestions.

Today I was able to successfully remove a very tight and broken tap from the 
plate.

The tap was broken just below the top surface of the plate.  As it turned out 
the tap was at least 3/4 of an inch into the plate.  It was a four fluted 
tap, two of the flutes had broked drill bits stuck inside of them.

As per your suggestions we (my father-in-law and I) were patient.  We slowly 
ground down the tap with diamond grinding bits in fordam tool.  As we exposed 
the flutes we hit them with a punch and slowly broke it apart.  Taps are hard 
but they are bittle.  Eventually we were able to drive the tap up from the 
bottom.  Amazingly the agraffe hole was not too badly damaged by all this.  
After carefully retaping the hole we installed a new agraffe, strings, and 
tuned.  Success and a relieved customer.

Thanks again

Andrew Remillard
ANRPiano@aol.com