Substitutes for Authentic Materials
By Colin Hinz
More tedious restoration questions for the on-line horde:
1) First off, I need a noun. What's the correct term for the big slab of (ply)wood which carries the bellows (or exhausters, as Ord-Hume would have it), reservoirs, expression boxes and so forth?
2) The (noun referred to in question 1) board in my Karn Solodant player is kaput. It's made of lumber-core plywood (a 3-ply sandwich of thick veneer -- about 1/8-inch or so -- and a core of solid lumber boards, each approx 1/2" x 3-1/2") and is probably maple. A bunch of the core boards have shrunk considerably with age, causing the whole mess to delaminate in spots. Repair is out of the question, so my query is what's a good trade-off between 'authentic materials' and currently available materials? I'm inclined to use regular 3/4" thick 5-ply or 7-ply Birch plywood, since it's readily available, inexpensive, and probably better for the job than the original materials. Sorry for belaboring this bit of boring minutae, but I want to do this job _right_. Comments?
3) While on the topic of "authentic materials", does any one know of a source of supply for nickel-plated slot head screws? I refuse to use any zinc-plated stuff since there's no point having fasteners that will look like crap in a mere 25 years down the road. Brass screws would be appropriate in some cases but I think they'd be incongruous against nickel-plated parts. A local fastener supply house will supply me with nickel-plated steel screws, but since this is a special-order item the set-up charge would be something like $160 ! HELP!!
4) Years ago, some meathead monkeyed with the Solodant expression boxes. There is a chamber which is open to atmosphere (this I infer from examining the 'logic' of the valves -- the expression system wouldn't make any sense otherwise) but the original port was monkeyed with. The original hole is about 3/8" dia with some traces of glue still present, so _something_ was there originally. The aforementioned meathead removed this _something_ and replaced it with a piece of tape from a first-aid kit, with a hole poked in it. (This didn't work, evidently, as the meathead then covered the hole up with another (unpoked) piece of tape.) Seems to me that the original _something_ in the hole was either a brass filter screen or a large bleed. Anybody have any insight on this?
Thanks for whatever help you can give.
Colin Hinz
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(Message sent Fri 3 Jan 1997, 18:08:01 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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