Thanks Ron. I know it was a very basic question, but I have just not ever done any grinding on metal before my current project. I had to cut out a corner of the plate to allow room for the tenor end of the long bridge. I found a little cheapie angle grinder at Sears on sale for $37 which came with a half-dozen accessories. Amazing how that thing can cut through cast iron quite easily. I looked at Harbor Freight and see that they have a number of different little grinders. I think I get the idea now. Perhaps I can also just get a couple of the small grinding accessories and put them on the little air-powered thingee (perhaps it is a die grinder) that Bill Spurlock sold me as part of his soundboard shimming kit. Cast iron seems more like wood than steel - it grinds very easily, and drills like a dream! When you drill new holes in the cast iron, how do you get the drill bit to drill the hole exactly where you want it. Do you simply use a good punch? I used a small diameter drill as a pilot to just start the hole, and then drilled with the proper sized hole for the new pins. That worked quite well - OK, one out of 150 walked on me kinda bad. Another good reason to make your first project like this an upright! I had to do some major re-alignment in the tenor section of these hitch pins. It's amazing how even on a Mason & Hamlin, the original hitch pins were not spaced very evenly. Maybe I shouldn't say anything publicly about that just yet - maybe I should wait until after I string it - maybe there was a good reason they were laid out that way! Isn't that what they say - "better put it back the same way - they must have had a good reason to do it that way!" I guess I'll find out. Terry Farrell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Nossaman" <RNossaman@cox.net> To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 7:10 AM Subject: Re: Hitch Pin Removal Cosmetics > > >After one removes all the hitch pins from a plate, what is the easiest way > >to cosmetically cover up the old hitch pin remnants? There seems to always > >be little nubs sticking up of the steel pins. Seems pretty hard to sand. > >Can't really get a grinder in there too well. How do you smooth them down > >enough to get to where you can simply fill with a fairing compound? > > > >Terry Farrell > > > A long neck electric die grinder works best for me so far, and a little 4" > angle grinder where I can reach, but I haven't tried everything yet. > > Ron N > > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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