I have an old Chickering that is coming into the shop that is in fairly decent condition, but it's biggest problem is all the backcheck wires are breaking! In the past I have replaced a few by chucking the "jack seat reaming tool" in a drill and basically cutting a little hole around the broken piece of wire. Using this method I have been able gain a purchase on the stub of wire and turn it out (the last time I encountered this, the original wires were threaded). That was fine for a few broken wires, but what about an entire set? The problem with the Jack reaming tool is that it doesn't drill deep enough before it bottoms out on the stub of the wire. I have read about making a tiny hole saw out of a roll pin using a Dremmel tool. Then it would be long enough to get to the bottom of the wire stub. Someone also suggested in the archives drilling out from the bottom and then punching them out from below. However, if the wires are threaded I could see this tearing out quite a bit of wood or damaging the wippen in some other way. I was thinking of just copping out and drilling new holes for the new wires, but I thought I would see if the wisdom of the list would have anything to say on this topic. Thanks, Ryan Sowers -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA <a href="http://www.pianova.net">www.pianova.net</a>