Hello Readers,  I'm hoping that someone out there can help me with an
old cylinder type music box I'm repairing.  I've had to go through the
entire mechanism cleaning and adjusting and it plays pretty good now,
but the cylinder has quite a few bent or broken pins.

I want to replace these so that all the notes will be played, but when
I try to straighten the bent ones, they just snap off.  What is the
best procedure for replacing pins that have broken off at the cylinder
surface?

I'll tell you what I've done so far.  Leaving the cylinder in the box,
for support while drilling, I line up a broken pin so its at the top,
then I strike the pin in the center with a small punch.  Using a Dremel
tool, in a drill press accessory, I attempt to drill out the old pin
using a .015 high speed drill bit.  Sometimes it works great, but
sometimes it slips off the pin and wobbles off into the softer brass.
When that happens, the .015 piano wire, that I replace the pins with,
is too loose so I must use .020 size wire and that is a pretty good
fit.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't just drill next to the old pin, either
below or above and staying in the softer material, get a straighter
hole.  Or is there an easier way to remove the old stub?

I'll get it eventually, the way I'm going, but I'm curious to know if
anyone has devised a faster and more reliable method.

Thank you for any advice you can give me.

Sincerely,
Les Plagmann
les_plagmann@hp.com