Trouble with Reed Replacement

Kinya,

I've watched your entire reed replacement video series on this site, and it's excellent.  I'm a newbie to this and have begun collecting the necessary tools you show in the videos.  I was trying to avoid spending $60 on a kit, but now I may be regretting that decision. 

I bought a jeweler's double-horned anvil with a small hole in it.  That arrived first, so I tried to remove they donor reed from an old harp.  I was removing the 5 draw reed.  I don't have a center-hole punch, so I'm using a fine nail set.  I also have a small household hammer.

The problem I encountered was that the reed plate bent at the point of impact when I removed the donor reed.  I suspect the same will happen on the good harp that I'm putting the reed into, so I'm obviously not going to do that!

I suspect the plate bent because when using the anvil, the reed plate cannot sit flush on the anvil surface, due to the adjacent rivets holding the plate up off the surface a little bit.  Therefore, when the impact of the hammer comes down, the plate is free to bend.

However, you did it successfully with a double-horned anvil in the video!  The only real difference I can see is that you used a center-hole punch, whereas I used the nail set.  Perhaps the nail set is getting stuck in the hole in the reed plate and driving the plate down so it bends.

I think that the Hering kit solves this problem because the anvil has the slot where all the rivet heads fit and the plate sits flush.

So what do you think?  Should I invest in a $5 hole punch and try again with the double-horned anvil; or should I bite the bullet and buy the $60 Herring Kit; or the Romel anvil?