Schon pin removal

Philthepockets said:

I am trying to remove a bent pin from a Schon LTD. I put plenty of heat into it but no go, seems like this metal does not transfer heat well enough to break down the glue (the pin goes cold very quick). I have never had this issue removing SS or brass pins before.
any ideas ? thanks.

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When I remove a bent pin, I heat and put pin down in a vise to the point where the stainless steel joint collar rests on top the vise. By using this method I find that i can get a better grip and more leverage to break the pin lose.

I had similar problems with pins that were badly bent, sometimes I think they bind inside the pocket that they are screwed into. Just don't get frustrated and force it or you could break something, and when you are done be sure and check the Stainless Joint collar for tightness, using to much heat can also loosen the epoxy holding it on.

One last idea if all else fails remove the joint collar so that you have more pin to grab, this way if you re-epoxy it you will not have to worry about the adhesive holding it on.

Take care hope this helps.

Let's start from the beginning. How did you determine that the pin was bent?
I've swapped-out a lot of pins in my days, primarily because the client wanted a different pin configuration, 14 to Radial, import radial to Uni-Radial, etc.
I can't remember ever seeing a pin bent so bad that it couldn't be straightened. This eliminates all the drama of using heat on a high-end cue, in this case, a Schon LTD.

Contacting Schon to ask if they would do it might not have been a bad idea either. I mean, it's their cue. Unfortunately, Schon most likely won't touch the cue now, or ever again for that matter.
Any time you have a major issue with a cue, your first move should be to contact the builder. Why? Because it's their cue and they know a little more about how the cue was constructed than you do. Also, once they accept the cue back for repair, all the liability is now on them, not you.

Sometimes you have to do the thinking for the client.
The client probably thought this would be a quick and easy repair and you may have even thought so as well. Now you've got a wolverine by the tail and he ain't likin' it. Sorry to be so blunt with my illustration but I don't see this finishing well.

Now that I've burst your bubble with my 'down-side' implications, I'll offer a viable solution. You won't like the initial cost but you'll make it back in the long-run. CARBIDE TOOLING.
The carbide end-mill eats away the stainless pin like candy without putting the integrity of the rest of the joint area at risk. No heat, no blistered finish, no re-install of the joint collar and no toasting of the wood.
What Manwon suggested is very real. The amount of heat needed to loosen this pin could very easily upset the bonding of the collar and you may not notice it. Somewhere out in the world now, that collar could come loose.
Once epoxy has been heated, it has lost all of it's bonding properties.
It will not magically reconfigure itself to (re)form an adequate bond.

Moral of the story: Always contact the builder first.

I just had to swap one on a schon an I have done many others. I found that the pocket the pin sits in from time to time is deeper than the pin is sitting. I heated mine up than screwed it in deeper then backed it out. This was much easier because I chucked up an arbor and then put the cue in the in the chucks. This allowed me to minimize the amounts of lateral movement and stress on the cue. Hope this helps.