Dust filters
By John A. Tuttle
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
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
(Message sent Sat 7 Sep 1996, 18:51:34 GMT, from time zone GMT-0400.) |
|
