•Hi Mike, I will first write a plea: remove the action to restore the piano but put it back. A concert grand pianola is extremely rare -- much rarer than a regular concert grand piano and it should be saved as a pianola. I just had my Weber Duo-Art piano mechanism serviced and so the memory of the p...

•Can I suggest that you take a series of detailed digital photos of everything before you dismantle and at each step along the way. That way you'll have a record when/if you do come to put it back together. Good luck, and I endorse Eli Shahar's plea that you do maintain it as a pianola. Jill Bear ...

•What is the best way to remove old (original) beeswax from a brass tracker bar? (I believe it was to seal off the lead tubing.) Thanks, Duaine Hechler Florissant, Missouri http://www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com/

•Duaine, As beeswax melts at 143-148 degrees, I would think that it would melt if held under a hot stream of water. I may have the edge on some of you because I have a tankless water heater which can be set from 0 to 75 degrees C. (167 Fahrenheit) with no waiting for hotter water. Just a note of cau...

•Hi, I used a hair dryer type heat gun to remove a beeswax wiring seal from a North American series phonograph motor commutator. It never desoldered any of the solder joints on the commutator and it allowed the wax to flow free from the entire area -- clean as a whistle! Use the heat gun with care a...

•As the son of a beekeeper, I know the hot air gun is a good bet, but use a paper towel to absorb the residue while the object is still hot. Robert K. Wilson

•Xylene is a good solvent for beeswax. It should be available at any good paint store or home improvement center. Tom Rosenbusch

•Hi all, whilst this technique may be well known, let me tell you anyway. My first job yesterday was to remove 176 rock-hard stumps of rubber tube from a tracker bar -- a job that I have done before, but hate doing. I have painstakingly slit the tubes with a sharp blade, and forced them off with a s...

•As a teen (long ago!) I worked for Johnny Green around l960 who rebuilt players from the l950's to the l980's. He had a piece of pipe about 3" in diameter, threaded at each end and capped. He filled it with gasoline, put the tracker bar in overnight, and voila! In the morning out came the tracker b...

•Thanks for the tip. On the Waltham I'm attempting to rebuild, we found a drill bit that would fit into the tube, then used a needle nose pliers to 'crush' the rubber -- the rubber in this case being so old and brittle it broke into small pieces or turned to powder. http://mtkraabel.home.comcast.net...

•For years I would remove the tracker bar with the tubing cut short and put it in a PVE [pipe cylinder] wide enough to accommodate any I might run across. The bottom cap was glued on and the top was removable. I filled it with ammonia which not only made the tubing drop off but after two days at the...

•I would not let a tracker bar sit in ammonia very much time as ammonia will etch brass. An experiment would be a piece of brass bar placed in an ammonia jar halfway. Take the brass bar out after an hour and you will notice that the ammonia will have reduced the size of the part of the brass bar tha...

•Sometimes the dragon loses. When I restored the stack of the 1926 Mason & Hamlin I used gauze similar to the original for the gasket between the pneumatic and the deck board. Unfortunately this did not make for a uniform leak-free joint. Testing the pneumatic by holding my thumb over the port while...

•Mary Alice Fassl wrote in 110104 MMDigest that she seeks a musical Christmas tree stand like her parents had. Well, she was fortunate to find and purchase a restorable musical tree stand with the same nickel plated brass cover, but the metal has some dents that must be removed, and the nickel plati...

•Good morning, I would suggest a good brass instrument repair technician for both the dent removal and nickel plating. The array of equipment, technique, and skill should be a perfect match. Just like piano technicians, band instrument techs vary widely by specialty and experience, so a certain amou...

•If you want dents removed in brass then take it to a band instrument repairman. The nickel plating was Watts nickel. It is a bit duller finish than most platers do today -- they actually make the nickel plate brighter by adding a brightener to the solution. Saccharin sweetener is the additive to ma...

•Antique car restorers who have vehicles from the 'teens and early '20s frequently encounter the need for restoration of spun brass parts, particularly headlight shells and bezels. One problem with these spun parts is that they often have radial cracks. This is the nature of old spun brass parts. As...

•Three of us are removing a fairly large residence organ and I have built a web site for it: http://www.tadstone.com/Jackling.html This organ has two automatic players on it: an Aeolian Duo-Art and a Roesler-Hunholz. Unfortunately, part of the things missing are all the rolls! Craig Williams Scotts ...

•[ Craig Williams wrote in 110120 MMDigest -- > Three of us are removing a fairly large residence organ and I have > built a web site for it: http://www.tadstone.com/Jackling.html Thanks for sharing this with us. I had the privilege of hearing Tom Hazleton play this organ back in the 1970s, and it w...

•[ Ref. 110818 MMDigest, "Piano Roll Box Explodes in Microwave Oven" Add piano roll boxes to the list of things you should never put in the microwave! I sell used books and sheet music and when I receive stock, I often have to remove old price stickers or other old labels glued to the book. Here's a...