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Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter SOLVED
Posted: Wed May 06, 2020 10:33 pm
by audiophile102
I use my L&H fibre needle cutter almost every day. Today the spring inside the device broke. I'm pretty sure it lasted passed any manufacturer's warrantee so I will need to repair it myself. My question is
where to I procure the material to replace the spring? I have a lot of broken Edison spring from my A250, but it's pretty tough to cut and almost impossible to bend.
Can I use a hack saw blade or a blade from a sawsall? I have a lot of time these days to figure it out, but I could use some advise.

- Broken Spring.JPG (57.34 KiB) Viewed 1665 times
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 12:06 am
by wjw
If you heat the spring steel to red-hot and let it cool slowly you can easily bend, cut and drill it. To temper it again you first have to harden it by heating to red-hot and dunking it in water right away. Clean the scaling off and then you evenly heat it to a blue-purple color (500 degrees if you can measure it) and let it cool slowly.
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 12:29 am
by Inigo
It must be very strong, I also use one L&H cutter, although lately I'm using the HMV type, which makes a stronger thicker point, that I've found works better.
I cannot figure out how to repair that, except trying to cut out the spring from a sweet steel sheet, then trying to temper it. Also trying to find out there another device that uses a similar spring, one of those blue steel elastic strips, and try to adapt it to the cutter. Maybe a any kitchen device as a can opener, or from a tool, as a stapler or whatever... Be imaginative and look around...
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 8:50 am
by mick_vt
Inigo wrote:It must be very strong, I also use one L&H cutter, although lately I'm using the HMV type, which makes a stronger thicker point, that I've found works better.
I cannot figure out how to repair that, except trying to cut out the spring from a sweet steel sheet, then trying to temper it. Also trying to find out there another device that uses a similar spring, one of those blue steel elastic strips, and try to adapt it to the cutter. Maybe a any kitchen device as a can opener, or from a tool, as a stapler or whatever... Be imaginative and look around...
Use spring steel tape and punch holes - dont try to add temper
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 8:52 am
by mick_vt
the taper is likely not all that necessary.
I would use a scrap of spring steel like you suggest, but would punch the holes. For cutting I would use a dremel
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 9:05 am
by Curt A
You can probably locate a clock spring which is close to the same width....
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 2:29 pm
by barnettrp21122
The above suggestions are fine if originality is important.
Or you can do what I did when this happened to me:
Take a small strong coil spring and place it as pictured below.
Close up the cutter and you're good to go!
Hope this helps!
Bob
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 2:31 pm
by Detrbear
This looks like a piano trap spring.
You can find them on Amazon by searching for "piano trap spring" or maybe a piano supply company would be cheaper, though they may have a minimum order.
The thicker the steel, the stronger the spring.
Hope this is helpful!
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter SOLVED
Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 2:02 pm
by audiophile102
The solution I went with was the one posted by
Bob Barnett. I did consider buying the spring from a piano parts manufacturer, but Bob's was simple and easy. I drilled out the rivets holding the broken spring out so I could buy the spring if I wanted later. Many thanks to all who chimed in with advise especially Bob.

- The view is from the back into the cutter and you can see the spring.
- IMG_0582.JPG (81.06 KiB) Viewed 1443 times
Re: Need Help With Broken Fibre Needle Cutter SOLVED
Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 2:10 pm
by barnettrp21122
Yay! Glad it worked!
Bob