MMD > Archives > June 1999 > 1999.06.07 > 03Prev  Next


Player Piano Questions From A Lurker
By Dan Kerl

Greetings to the list from a first time poster.

I have some questions regarding a player piano that I came into
possession of back in the mid seventies.  The instrument had
been left in the weather; hence the woodwork had been damaged.  After
I had gotten it, I started to rebuild it. I managed to get most of the
pneumatics rebuilt and replaced the lead tracker box tubing with some
neoprene stuff.  Time and space (or a lack thereof) has caused me to
rethink putting a lot of effort into this piano, considering the case
damage.

The Piano is a Bush and Lane with a Ferrand-Cecilian logo on the plate.
This thing uses zinc diecast pneumatics, arranged in TWO rows on a
vacuum manifold made out of square metal tubing.  While I have seen
references to three row and single row diecast zinc pneumatic stacks,
I haven't found anything about a two row stack.  The pneumatics have
been rebuilt with new cloth, valve facings and pouches. The motor
pneumatics have also been redone.  I have no idea of this instrument's
value, although I don't believe it's anything special.  I'm considering
parting it out.  I was not able to restore a couple of the pneumatics,
but out of the 88 that the piano was equipped with, the top three had
no connection to the manifold (missing holes). This had to be some kind
of marketing gimmick.

Since I'm unaware of the value of this piano, I'd like to know if
parting it out would be a mistake.  If not, is there any interest in
parts, either those of the player mechanism or of the piano itself?

--Thanks


(Message sent Tue 8 Jun 1999, 00:55:59 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.)

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