•Hi all, In response to Bill Finch's post in 01-28-01 MMD regarding tuning stability, I too have encountered the same problem. I am not as lucky to be able to store the band organ indoors where the temperature is constant. Its home is in the garage, here in Washington state. I have kept the garage h...

•In 010318 MMDigest John Tuttle speculates on the aging factors in piano rolls. A thing that never fails to strike British visitors to US collectors is the perilous state of their rolls. They seem fifty years older than ours. They've gone brown and brittle and sometimes pieces break off with little ...

•I have a problem with "jumping" tuning pins. I have not tuned the piano for the last three years. I have had the temperature higher than I used to have and I believe the wood has "dried" too much. What I find now is the pins are harder to break loose and a cracking noise is heard each time. Just wh...

•[ Ref. Michael Taylor's query in 010804 MMDigest] I feel I should recommend the use of shellac above all other finishes. I dabbled with polyurethanes and found them far more difficult to use than normal shellac. If you are going to use shellac, Mr. Taylor, and you want it to be clear, get the light...

•Hi All, At the risk of sounding redundant, controlling the "environment", not the instrument, is the key to longevity and tuning stability. I've personally seen more damage than good when a well-meaning (or perhaps not so well-meaning) technician installed a system for controlling temperature and h...

•Jonathan Holmes writes, "I have a great worry about some of these historic instruments..." As I have said, before I am against this attitude of putting these things away in a museum. When these instruments were built there was _no_ air conditioning. There is a photograph of a Seeburg G sitting next...

•Mike Knudsen wrote about the outdoor environment and what it does to the band organs: > These machines should not be shut up in museums and so never be heard > in their intended environment outdoors. After all, fairground organs > and band organs were designed to be used outdoors in all kinds of > ...

•I know of a person here in Phoenix, Arizona, who loves the old band organs and larger instruments. He does not do the work for a living but only for his own enjoyment and satisfaction. He does beautiful work and is a master craftsman. His workshop is a large room on the side of the house and he doe...

•Jody Kravitz wrote in MMDigest 010826: > It looks like there is an improved design of the Dampp-Chaser > which includes a humidistat and humidifier as well as the > traditional rod-shaped heater. This is the version we had installed on our Yamaha C7. I did not realize there was a heater-only versio...

•[ Dan Armstrong wrote to John: > John, I've used de-humidifier bars to great advantage here in the > colder (than New Jersey) north-Midwest. One thing I've found is it > prevents the sweating of the harp considerably as the piano warms up > during the opening of the home in the spring. The pianos I...

•Hi Mike, Some years ago I asked the folks at the Smithsonian about their antique pianos. They said they never let the temperature fall below 55 degrees F. I figure they are a pretty reliable source of information, so I've advocated 55 F. ever since. My customer's home is one block from the Atlantic...

•Ray Finch asked, in 010907 MMDigest: > I know that pianos don't like excessive heat (pneumatic coverings > crack, rubber tubing and leathers dry out, etc.), but what damage > does cold do to a player piano? It would depend on how much cold. Much below freezing would cause separation and weakening o...

•For my money, the electric blanket idea is a bust. For one thing, the entire piano would not be heated evenly: some parts would be hot, some cold, and the condensation would be an additional problem. I recently redid a piano that had been in an unheated garage here in Vermont for 15 years, and the ...

•I agree wholeheartedly with Ken Vinen's solution to the left-hand music roll flange problem, which is to use neoprene washers on the flange to hold it out from the roll edge. I have done it exactly like this for years and it works perfectly. I really like the "Ideal" green paper rolls (The Rose Val...

•I have a 1936 Chickering Ampico B with an older rebuild. The treble plays too softly since the drier weather, but the bass plays fine. Is there a regulation to increase the minimum volume of the treble end? This model has the trombone-like 1st Intensity slide and not the two big set-screws. It seem...

•There are as many different ways of applying a finish with a pad as there are products to use. I have, for years, polished this way. To my mind, "French polishing" refers to the final steps to the finish, whereas padding refers to the intermediate steps to the final finish. A French polish is actua...

•Our church has a Yamaha C7. I believe it is around 35 years old. It has the Japanese Yamaha logo rather than the English one. Not knowing the full history of the piano (it was given to us as a gift, used), I wonder if the logo indicates it was originally destined for the Japanese market. In any cas...

•There are a few more aspects to the question posed by Phil Dayson concerning designing around major transistor failures. In addition to designing circuits conservatively so that, in the event of transistor breakdown, one isn't faced with disastrous fires, the software designer can include sub-routi...

•[ Marc Elbasani wrote in 020408 MMDigest: > Woodworms and termites are a scary thing to me, so I was hoping you > all could suggest a number of different poisons to mix into shellac. Marc: Please, as a restorer, the last thing I need is to have poisoned pipes. The shellac alone is usually enough to...

•Barry Dennis asked about mold in a piano he rebuilt in 1978. About the same time period I rebuilt an Ampico that also was in a house located by a river. The customer called me about a year after it was rebuilt and said it wouldn't play right. When I took off the belly cloth there was mold everywher...