MeganMills

Thank you for the welcome - and for anyone who's curious.

I've got them out (hurrah!). What I did with the bottom one was liberally lubricate down the shaft of the pin figuring that a miniscule amount might get down into the hole and not just sit on the bed. Then I got a 2.5mm rod (actually, my husband's hex screwdriver - but that's fair play 'cause he's used my good sewing scissors sometimes for things that were not, ahem, fabric). I inserted that into the hole on the bed of the machine under the pin and gave a few gentle but firmish, dead straight taps, then tried wriggling the pin from the top and tapped a few times more. I fancied that the spool pin maybe wasn't quite as upright as it was. So then I shrouded everything and gave the pin, at the top, a couple of gentle sideways taps. It moved slightly off-centre. So I did it again on the other side. But very gingerly, I didn't want a permanently bent or crooked pin in my machine.

It moved off-centre back the other way just a bit. After a couple more of these "slightly knock off-centre" taps I went to see how how free it was with my hand and in a jiggle or two it surprised me mightily by simply coming free into my hand.

I'm thinking the little shock waves from the sideways taps, in my case, were just enough to make the penetrant work its way into where the pin was tapped in and free it up.

This may be something experienced people try automatically but it was a surprise and delight to me.