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that can work, Diane...I've done it in the past on plates I wasn't worried about cosmetics on (because there will inevitably be some scratches), but once in a while I'd get a becket that wouldn't break, and the pin would go on winding so that the string went all the way flat but then backup in pitch again in the other direction - obviously not a good thing - so you have to be careful to avoid that! I use a becket breaker, myself.<div><br></div><div>Allen Wright</div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Jul 5, 2008, at 8:53 AM, Diane Hofstetter wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">Am I slow, or what? <br> <br> For 30 years now I have been carefully breaking the beckets and then extracting the tuning pins from the block using an electric drill.<br>Today I was having problems getting the wire to break at the beckets and was getting frustrated. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br> <br>Since I had just purchased a new drill, I sat down to learn about it and get my mind off those durned beckets. I finished assembling the drill and decided to try it out on some of the pins where I thought I had succeded in breaking the wire at the beckets.<br> <br>A couple of pins came out nicely and the new drill felt great in my hands (much lighter than the old one). Then, on to the next pin and zing! snap! the becket broke while I was taking the pin out!<br> <br>So I tried it on another pin--it snapped the wire at the becket as I was pulling the pin out! So I removed all the treble wire that way, after looking closely at the stringing pattern and trying to remove pins in a pattern that generally had a pin immediately to the left of the one that I was removing, thus giving the wire something to hit against.<br> <br>Have I been wasting all that time breaking beckets all these years? Does everybody else simply break the beckets at the same time as taking the pins out? <br><br><br>Diane Hofstetter<br></span></blockquote></div><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div><br></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></span> </div><br></div></body></html>