Does this tool exist? and what might it be called?

[roger wiegand]

For an organ restoration project I'm in the midst of I need to brad nail some small brass plates in place to reinforce a cloth hinge. When they built it originally the area would have been accessible, now that the chest has been glued together I need to figure out how to sneak them into a space an inch or so wide and recessed by 1-4 inches. I do have good left-right clearance- the hinges are essentially at the bottom of a slot.

The perfect tool would be a ~6" piece of steel rod, drilled at the end to accept the brad without wobbling too much and a magnet to hold it in place until the nail is set. Once I get it 3/4 of the way in I can drive it home with a regular nail set. Does such a thing exist as a commercial tool?

Alternately any advice as to how to drill a tiny hole in the end of a rod? The smallest drills I have are 1/16th (which would be a fairly sloppy fit) and all I've succeeded in doing is breaking them off trying to drill into steel. Obviously I am not a machinist! I suppose brass or aluminum would hold up for the few dozen nails in question and would be easier to drill.

The wire brads are 0.035", a shade over 1/32".

[Tom M King]

Brad driver, or brad pusher, or sometimes magnetic nail set

https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Larson-620-0560-Brad-Driver/dp/B0012XR9QW

edited to add: My local Ace Hardware sells individual letter, and number drill bits, since you probably don't want to buy a whole set. Some of the tiny ones come in little paper envelopes with 3, or 5 bits in them.

[Richard Coers]

Craftsman made a slide hammer nailer decades ago. You still see them on ebay and letgo.

[mike stenson]

Brad driver, or brad pusher, or sometimes magnetic nail set

https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Larson-620-0560-Brad-Driver/dp/B0012XR9QW

edited to add: My local Ace Hardware sells individual letter, and number drill bits, since you probably don't want to buy a whole set. Some of the tiny ones come in little paper envelopes with 3, or 5 bits in them.

.035 would be a #65 btw.


http://carbideprocessors.com/pages/types-of-drill-bits/drill-bit-size-chart.html <-- handy chart :)

[Ralph Okonieski]

I have a brad nailer like Tom linked above. It was purchased maybe 20-25 years ago. It works fine, although it takes a fair amount of effort if the wood is oak. The brad is enclosed inside the hollow end. A magnet or magnetic end holds the brad in place inside.

[roger wiegand]

Perfect, thanks guys! I kept getting hung up with looking for a nail set and not finding what I wanted. The brads are going into 125 year old "white wood" (poplar I'm guessing), and it's pretty soft.

[Bill Dufour]

"pea shooter" might work but I think it is not the correct angle. You might use a porkchop drill to predrill a hole. Then use needle nose pliers to set the nail.
Bill D

http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?media/porkchop-for-match-drilling-holes.5333/

Brown Aviation has lots of aircraft drills and tools like this or watc hebay. also called a pancake drill
(http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?media/porkchop-for-match-drilling-holes.5333/)

[Roger Davis]

Tell us more about the organ (Pipe or Reed)?

Roger

[roger wiegand]

I finally remembered I had a box of micro solid carbide router bits acquired for cheap on the big auction site. I put one in my Foredom tool and was able to put an appropriate hole in the end of a piece of drill rod pretty easily with it. Putting a small rare earth magnet stuck to the side of the rod gave me sufficient holding power to keep the brad in place. Worked great and the job is done!

I collect and restore mechanical musical instruments (search for the Diamond Jubilee Carousel Organ to see my big pipe organ). The organ in question here is a ~1895 Aeolian Grand 58 key player reed organ. It has a total of about 450 reeds; the hinges referenced here are on the pallet valves that are operated by the stops to control banks of reeds. It can be hand played or plays from a paper roll. It is among the earliest roll operated instruments; the mechanism is quite different from most later player pianos. (I hope it works!) I've been working on restoring it for nearly 20 years now, with huge gaps where it just sat. I'm pushing to the finish line now. I've just finished stripping, veneer repair, making missing parts, and refinishing the rosewood case.

437757

[Tom M King]

If there was a "like" button, I would have hit it.

[Ron Selzer]

Very nice
clean shop(word count)

[John Grossbohlin]

Brad driver, or brad pusher, or sometimes magnetic nail set

https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Larson-620-0560-Brad-Driver/dp/B0012XR9QW

edited to add: My local Ace Hardware sells individual letter, and number drill bits, since you probably don't want to buy a whole set. Some of the tiny ones come in little paper envelopes with 3, or 5 bits in them.

The Crown Tools 110XW might work better... it has a spring loaded mechanism that can probably be applied multiple times to drive the brads into oak.

[roger wiegand]

Very nice
clean shop(word count)

Camera angle is everything :D. Every open surface is covered with organ parts right now; it's making me a little crazy. Good motivation to start putting things back together!

Straightening tightly coiled stainless music wire stock is a (literal) pain. (I'm spinning it with a drill while pulling it through a small hole in a block of wood. It works reasonably well, but without the leather gauntlets it was a little tough on the forearms.) The music wire is used to make a torsion bar spring to hold the dampers closed. Twelve down and six more to go and I'll be done with that task. The old ones were plain spring steel and the mouse pee did them in.

[Bill Dufour]

Do you own an old leather jacket for welding or would the harbor freight leather welding gloves be long enough to help? I bought. a set of three welding gloved from HF on sale. One pair each for Mom, sister and wife. They love them for pruning roses and citrus. Maybe slide an old bluejean leg over your arm.
Did you consider using screws instead of brads. Screws is how I attach electric boxes in old work.
Bil lD

[roger wiegand]

It's done for this time, but I have some elbow length leather gloves that I mostly use for pulling poison ivy. One pair is still "clean" and can be used for other things.

It would have taken really tiny screws that would be hard to manipulate down at the bottom of a hole, but mainly they wouldn't have looked original. They did use lots of screws in this thing, someone had the philosophy of "why not use 10 screws where three would do". I've spent a lot of time polishing screw heads.

[al heitz]

Beautiful organ. Envy your patience and talents.