I’ve tried most of the available tools for push pins in watch
bracelets. Mostly the stem is long and uniformly thin so slight
misalignment causes breakage. And of course, they tend to break when
the customer is looking over my shoulder.
I’ve been using this jerry rigged tool. A simple cup bur in a
chucked handle. The cup is self centering on cotter pins, still
works on flat end pins, works well on compression tube pins too.
Haven’t had a failure yet and it actually takes less effort.
Just leave a dollar on the counter, thanks
Excellet idea. I can see that it will work. What size cup bur would
you recommend.
Kenneth Singh
Karat46 / Ring Tools
What size cup bur
The one in the pic measures .9mm outside. I think as long as the bur
fits inside the hole without binding you should be OK. Balance that
off against that the smaller the bur, the smaller the diameter of the
stem just behind the head, which would be weaker. Too tight a fit
would likely increase the need for good alignment. I believe its the
taper without a straight that makes it stronger as the force is
concentrated at the end of the taper rather than further up on a
straight tool, leverage and all. Most of the regular pin tools bend
or break where the straight meets the main body.
You can’t drive the pin out all in one shot so use another tool to
extract the pin… push a ‘regular’ pin tool or pull the pin with
pliers. But usually its that first attempt that breaks tips.