Hi,

In reference to Subject: Why Don't Tracker-Bar Air Filters Exist?
(Karl Ellison)Digest 96.09.06. They do exist. Many of the players
I've rebuilt have a cheese cloth type material glued to one of the
junction blocks between the lead tubes and the pouch chamber. But
there are also a lot of units that have nothing.

However, in MOST cases, a household vacuum cleaner does not have
adequate suction to effectively clean the entire line. I have
proven this fact hundreds of times to myself and to the customers
who insist that their Kirby does the job. When I play the test roll,
it doesn't surprise me that some notes perform poorly. Then, after
checking the mechanical aspects of the piano action and the
adjustment of the player action to the piano action and finding
them in good order, I ask for their tracker bar pump. If they
don't have one, I go out to the car and get my "bag-o-pumps".

Frankly, (and I guess I'm being sort of a wise-guy here) I don't
mind getting paid my hourly rate to investigate the cause of weak
or poorly repeating notes. And I don't mind getting paid to pump
out the tracker bar with a well-operating tracker bar pump. I
always show the customer the clean filter before I start pumping
and I clean the filter after every few passes until the filter is
"almost clean". Typically, the "big pieces" are starting to show
up by then and I stop pumping to inform the customer about the
effect that the big pieces can have as compared to the dust. At
that point, I usually remind the customer of my hourly rate and
ask them if I should continue pumping or leave it to them to
complete at a later date. Most elect to do it themselves. Then
I run the test roll again and point out the differences. The
whole process can take 20-40 minutes. I repair and sell a lot
of tracker bar pumps. Most people don't want to pay my rate for
something they can effectively do for themselves for free.

Near the beginning of this letter I said "..in MOST cases.."
and I want to clarify that remark. It has come to my attention
within the past week that units containing perflex pouches are
extremely prone to deterioration from hydrolysis within as little
as two years when used heavily in very humid environments.
If the pouches are even near the breaking point, the use of a
tracker bar pump will rip them. A regular vacuum cleaner might
not. I realize that we're not comparing apples to apples but I
don't wish to be accused of recommending a procedure that could
damage a unit with perflex pouches. More on that subject later.

Musically, John Tuttle¶
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John A Tuttle "Self-Playing Pianos"    E-mail:tuttleja@concentric.net
407 19th Avenue                             908-840-8787 (leave message)
Bricktown, NJ 08724               Rolls:1-800-870-8784 (leave order)
"We Keep Your Music Rolling"  http://www.concentric.net/~tuttleja/
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