Introduction and Novice Player Piano Questions
By Rick Inzero
Hi gang,
I'm pleasantly surprised to find such a list exists!
I'm Rick Inzero from Rochester, NY. I just found/joined the Mechanical Music Digest this week while searching the WWW for player piano info. I've been interested in mechanical music for years, and would love to get a band organ, but realize that 1) I will never be able to afford one, and 2) even if I could, there'd be no place to play it; the neighbors would get a little upset with the loudness I suspect. I'm more (only slightly) realistically interested in getting a barrel (monkey) organ, but it'll be many years before that happens.
Now to quit wishin'...
My wife & I've been toying with the idea of getting a piano so the kids can take lessons, and then last week it dawned on me that if I got a PLAYER piano, we all could immediately enjoy it, without waiting for the years of practice to finish! :-) I would like to buy an old used one, and rebuild/refurbish it. I do understand what I'm getting into; that it's a lot of time & all, but I'm very good with mechanical things and would really like to do this. My idea is to get the piano part "up" quickly (so it could be used for lessons), and then 6-12 months to slowly work through the player restoration.
So, that's how I wound up searching the WWW for info; I had found a "make offer" player piano in the paper and went to look at it Saturday. In reading the WWW info, I realized some very important things:
- a piano is an extremely complicated instrument. Although I'm
confident I could refurbish the player, the piano part really
scares me.
- get an experienced piano technician to look at the piano once you
decide it looks ok to you; if the sound board is no good, it's a
waste to spend time working on the player mechanism.
- there's absolutely no way I could *ever* move this myself, no
matter how many friends I have, and that even if I can get a
piano for 10 bucks, it's going to cost me $200-300 to transport
it once, to my house; a significant investment in something
that's completely non-functional from the outset. Hence, I'm
looking for advice on what's reasonably repairble and what's
extrordinary (so broken that it's not worth the effort) for a
player piano.
- FYI, I called a very nice local piano repairer who offered some
amazing ballpark costs if you were to pay somebody to do *all*
the work of a complete restoration: $3000 to refurb the player,
$2000 for the piano, $1200 for the case. For a ground up/worst
case restoration, $7000+ total. Naturally, doing your own work
can save a significant amount of money.
*** Question #1a: Assuming I get lucky, how much would a
functional-but-needing-attention player piano be worth (one that
somebody can put in a roll, pump it, and hear it make sounds)?
*** Question #1b: How much for a non-functional player and somewhat
gimpy piano (like the Thompson below)?
Keeping these things in mind, Saturday's piano was found to be from around 1915 (pure guessing, from the patent dates on the front). It's a Steiger(sp?) Artemis. It looked like it was all there, but the player was non functional (of course; I expected that). It had been apparently reworked in the past to run off an external vacuum source- a metal pipe was sticking out through the (warped) wooden panel covering the foot bellows; in hindsight, I don't think the foot bellows were hooked up, although I didn't think to look at that. Now that I've read more about this, I'm suspicious as to why the old owners would need an external source; this may have been an indication of hard pumping, which would be the result of significant air leaks, so maybe this player had started to go downhill even before idle storage. The keys were missing most of their ivory. The case's veneer had loose/peeling sections, and some small broken off/missing pieces. The pump pedals had foot marks worn in them, perhaps indicating a lot of use. The carrying handles in back even looked well worn. What really scared me off was the piano part. Only 2/3 of the keys had good piano action. The rest were harder to push before sound would be made. Looking inside, the felt was peeling off part of most of the hammers on the hard-to-press keys. (More evidence of dampness damage?) Also, along the back bottom of the piano, was a piece of plywood all along the width. This was worrisome, too.
*** Question #2: Do my worries about the piano sound justified? I'm
thinking this would be an extrordinary restoration which I don't
want to get into.
Just today at lunchtime, I went to see another "make offer" player. This one was a Thompson, approximately the same age, and overall looked not-as-used at the Artemis was, and of higher quality construction (just my first impression). The back of the case & carrying handles were like new; the pump pedals weren't worn at all. It was not functional as well, but at least all the keys had good action in striking the strings; one problem was that the keys would then stick about 1/2 way up. I'm suspecting that (like with any used piano I buy), simply a good professional cleaning would cure this, and that it isn't significant to my decision. It had one broken off hammer too, and some dust inside.
*** Question #3: are rusty strings ok? (Or would the entire piano have
to be restrung?)
*** Question #4: is it ok to store a piano in an unheated barn (thru
the winter, etc.), or is it completely ruined now?
Curiously (to me), the Thompson had the exact same metal piano frame as did the Artemis.
On this Thompson, the air motor is connected to the paper spool (in play or rewind; I can't tell which yet) via a thin chain drive with two sprocket gears. The top sprocket gear is apparently made of pot metal, and the moisture has gotten to it and rotted it significantly; if I buy this piano, I would need a new one. Near the top gear, on the same shaft, is a bulging disk, also made of pot metal, also rotting; it's not clear what this part is for, but I would need a new one as well Being completely new to this,
*** Question #5: are parts like this sprocket and disk easily available
(are there old player piano parts dealers, is this a common part?)
or is this something completely obsolete that I'd have to get
recreated by a machine shop? (Is this bad sprocket & disk
something insignificant or is it a "show stopping" problem?)
*** Question #6: Having looked at only these 2 pianos, is this as good
as it gets for average-joe used player pianos, or should I keep
looking for a player piano that will demonstratably play?
Any advice or answers to questions would be appreciated!!
---
Rick Inzero
Northern Telecom, Inc.
Rochester, NY rdi@cci.com |
(Message sent Tue 24 Sep 1996, 21:14:02 GMT, from time zone GMT-0400.) |
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