[ Ref. 980618 MMDigest, 980619 MMDigest ]

In reference to Dan Wilson's response to Plagmann I agree with him that
the only way to replace broken cylinder pins is to let someone who makes
cylinder repinning his/her business do the job. The job is not an easy
one and involves several steps. Before the pins can be chemically
removed in an acid bath, the Repinner melts out the wax mixture from
the inside of the cylinder which serves as anchoring of the protruding
portion of the pins inside the cylinder. This wax mixture is usually a
combination of wax and a gritty material, quite often ground brick,
believe it or not. Because of the rigidity of this wax mixture the pins
are firmly held in place, greatly improving the sound of the box.

The Repinner will then replace the wax, usually the same wax that was
in it, after the pins are replaced and before grinding them to size.
Replacing the wax is done by spinning the cylinder so the wax, due to
centrifugal force, is driven to the circumference of the inside of the
cylinder which is left spinning till the wax has set.

The very early music boxes contained cylinders with very hard pins and
no wax mixture. The sound of such a box is quite thin and to improve
quality of sound and better lodging of the pins the early manufacturers
came up with the wax mixture solution as a way to accomplish that.
Therefore, I do not recommend to ever try to drive a pin through its
hole with a punch.  Doing so will most probably crack the wax around
several pins in the neighborhood.  Should one be so lucky only to effect
one pin and not to misshape the hole even with a punch "no larger than
the original pin diameter", how are you going to replace the wax around
the pin. Also an out of round cylinder will become the usual byproduct.

My advice is, if you cannot live with a few missing pins, have the
cylinder repinned and reraked (set to the correct angle) by a
professional. The cost is an average of fifty dollar per inch of
cylinder length, although that is a rough guess on my part. That's
quite expensive but you have the guarantee that your expensive box
retains its value and you become the beneficiary of a beautiful and
full sounding box and not with a ruined cylinder that cannot be
repaired should you finally give up punishing it with a punch....

Albert de Boer.