[pianotech] broken grand acton screw

Joseph Garrett joegarrett at earthlink.net
Thu Jul 15 23:34:56 MDT 2010


Randy C. asked: "Could use some advice. I am rebuilding a 1883 Steinway grand for a 
client and when I took the stack off, one of the screws snapped. I 
used a soldering gun to heat up the screws when I realized they 
weren't coming out easily, which helped with all but that one. Turns 
out the last guy who worked on it glued the screws in. Go figure. Its 
buried about 1/4" below the surface and of course the screw surface is 
jagged. I know that a pilot hole should be drilled into the screw 
fragment and then use the screw extractor. My question is, how do you 
drill into steel thats imbedded in wood with damaging the wood? Even 
using a punch first would be difficult. Any body have any miracle 
thoughts?
Thanks"

Randy,
I'd suggest using hollow cutter that will allow the screw to go up the center of the cutter and cut a hole for a standard size cut plug. I don't know the name of these thingees, but they work well. I got some from various woodworking stores/catalogues. I even made one out of steel rod. You chuck it in your drill. put the drill in reverse and the cutter cuts down and when there is a bit of the wood/screw in the cutter it will back out the rest of the screw. Just slicker'n a bugger on a door knob.<G> plug it with a cut plug. drill for the new screw and you're good to go.
Joe
Joe 


Joe Garrett, R.P.T. (Oregon)
Captain, Tool Police
Squares R I
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