It's wonderful having an MMD group such as this to bounce issues around.
I am in the midst of re-tubing a Pratt-Read player. The lead tubing was
serviceable, but it contained a fair amount of chalky lead dust, so I decided
to 'get the lead out'. Rather than drill the lead tubing out, I tried the
following method. It worked on all but about six attempts. I found that a
1-1/2 inch galvanized deck screw fits into the cutoff lead tube just snugly
enough that it will grip the lead, but not expand the lead tightly into
the hole.
___V____ V ____ ____
| / | / | |
| / | / washer | |
| / | / | |
| / | / | |
| / | / | |
| / | / | |
/ /
/ /
/ /
extractor (made up from) screw rigid tube
My rigid tube was a cut-off case of a Bic ball-point pen. The washer was
necessary to keep the screw from splitting or stretching the plastic pen
casing. The pen case was wider than the outside diameter of the lead
tubing. I simply screwed the deck screw into the center of the lead tube
and the tube backed itself out. I drilled out the 6 lead tubes that
would not grip the screw well enough to be extracted. Drilling causes
the lead to sliver. Cleaning out the hole gets more time consuming after
drilling.
Anyway, there you have it. Simple. Reliable. I threw away each screw
with the lead tubing still wrapped on it after it was used once. This
saved me having to remove the lead from the screw to reuse it.
Hope this helps someone.
Larry Toto
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