Here is how you can make new Wurlitzer-style valves.  Use an automated
punch machine and a "Pem" fastener machine; in fifteen minutes you
are done.

The Pem fastener is the key to making the valves.  In the past,
restorers have had to use screws and then grind off the head of the
screw.  A Pem fastener (McMaster-Carr for one source) can easily be
inserted on a drill press with easy to make tooling.  Many of today's
piano rebuilders or home hobbyist would never run into Pem fasteners.

The firm that made them for me just happened to right size cutters in
their CNC punch machine or it would have never happened.  Once set up,
these machines could make thousands of these valve discs in an hour.
The machine time on this run, to make four hundred of the valve discs,
was less than five minutes.

After they were made the manufacturer said "no more" -- they ran out
of fiber material and I was lucky enough that they just happened to
have the machine set up with the right sizes of dies the day I needed
the machine.  I would have never thought about the Pem fastener, which
works perfectly.

Don Teach - Shreveport Music Co.
Shreveport, Louisiana

 [ Don sent a photo which I will place at the MMD Tech site,
 [ http://mmd.foxtail.com/Tech  -- Robbie