[pianotech] Slipping Becket

[Ron Nossaman]

On 1/27/2012 9:11 AM, David Love wrote:

> There is clearly something about the pin which is causing this
> to happen but I'm not sure exactly what that is.  Thoughts?

There was a discussion about this sometime last year, buried among the 
HL bitch posts. A sharper bend at the becket *might* work, but I 
guarantee that a longer becket bent over to prevent it's being pulled 
back into the pin will lock it in.

I know, HORRORS!!!! But it's one pin, and immediately fixes the symptoms 
without unduly disturbing anything else. It's a pain to remove later. So 
what? It's ONE PIN. In futile hope of heading off the multiple lectures 
someone is almost sure to deliver on the unprofessionalism of stringing 
a piano this way, no, I don't recommend that. This, however, is a matter 
of expedient practicality.

Since someone else out there is certain to actually string entire pianos 
that way, like the piano I have in the shop at the moment, I have a 
further recommendation.

Faced with a double bend locked in becket on every single 4/0 pin in 
this piano, I dug out an old becket breaker and fired up the bench 
grinder. One of the problem with becket breakers is that if any of the 
becket protrudes from the far side from the primary bend, the breaker 
will jam on it and precipitate 200+ life and death struggles in the 
course of destringing. The pictured modification largely prevents that. 
Normally, I just let the tension down, pry the becket out with an awl 
and lever the coil off the top of the pin, and cut the strings at the 
agraffe or capo, then pull the plate with the pins still in the block. 
In this case, I found it easier to cut the beckets at the primary bend 
with the modified tool, and pull the pins out through the coils with my 
air impact driver.

For what it's worth,
Ron N
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Becket breaker mod.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 17824 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20120127/0d15cafb/attachment.jpg>