To all hobbyists, novices, do-it-yourselfers, and other less
experienced player technicians.  I have had a round of items that
needed re-restoration and I think I should say this to the group.

Do not ever use PVC to put screws in for fear they may be stripped.
I have run into people who regularly glop PVC glue on every screw they
put in.  In my experience this actually strips out the hole and often
glues in the screw in tight enough for it to break off when it rusts
and needs to come out in future.

It rusts because of the glue many times.  The head looks fine but the
body is about rusted through.  The ones that do not rust, still break
way too often.  Not all of them rust but many do.  When you take them
out they take enough wood with them that the hole is stripped if it
wasn't before.

Do not ever use PVC to glue a gasket on both sides.  It is acceptable
to glue down a gasket with PVC, in fact it works well, but DO NOT coat
it with glue when you put the pieces together.  I recently had an
Ampico expression box rebuilt by a local 'expert' that had all four
expression primaries (2,4,6,7) glued down totally.  I guess he thought
his work was so great no one would ever have to rebuild the player
system ever again.  Guess again.  That work was done about 5 years ago.

I also had a complete 88-note player system that had someone do that
as well.  The pedal pneumatic was so completely glued together at the
gasket, it took me half an hour to get it apart.  When it finally came
apart, the boards were so badly split I had to make a whole new unit
from new wood.

Do not use PVC to coat Ampico unit valve blocks.  No great disaster
here, but it makes them stick together worse than the original burned
shellac does.  It does not come off easily like shellac or burned
shellac does.

D.L. Bullock    St. Louis
http://www.thepianoworld.com/