•A remarkable item is already on the market. An acrylic polymer which can be tinted for colour match. I've made numerous invisible repairs on chips. The stuff is great for cracks too. This material is available for US $40 from Richard Wagner, email . Jon Page Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass. (jpage@cap...

•To Terry Smythe: regarding the spring of any music box. Unless you fully understand the lethal potential of the springs in these mechanisms (even in a small-sized mechanism) and are equipped to do it, I suggest you send the spring out to be pulled and cleaned and checked for tears and re-greased an...

•Antique Phonograph Supply Company (APSCO, they now have a nice web page) will do spring lube and/or replacement. They have a lot of experience and use new stock if the old spring is broken. That being said, if you are adventurous, the safest way I have found to unload a spring is to get a big plast...

•Dear Terry, My suggestion on removing a disc music box spring is -- don't even think about it! I have the equipment to remove springs in cylinder boxes, and sometimes even then, a large, early spring can be a true "4-hand operation!" There has been mention on the Digest of someone who will replace ...

•Does anyone have a good method of removing cigarette burns from a wooden bench? The burn is about one inch long. The bench has a lacquer finish. One more quick thing: I would like to see everyone put their geographic location, i.e.: City, State, or City, Country, etc. Thanks. Scott Olson Missoula, ...

•You cannot get under the veneer and pop it back out like a dent in your automobile. In the piano trade we use a burn-in knife with a wet towel (a paper towel works). The hot knife steams the water in the paper towel and this steam swells the wood back up. If your finish is thick then this doesn't w...

•You might want to try using a small syringe and forcing a little water into the dimple, under the veneer then put a thick cloth over it and hold a iron there for a short time. Between the water swelling the wood and the hot iron expanding the water, this may pop it out, but watch the iron: too long...

•Our method to raise dents is to use a fine wire gauge drill bit to drill a series of small holes through the grain of the veneer, into the substrate. These small holes will allow steam to penetrate deeper into the dent and thus cause more than the surface veneer to expand. We also try to use some m...

•G'day all, I noticed whist repairing a Duo-Art roll (Rubinstein's Barcarolle p.b. Hofmann, 6682-4) that it has small paper patch deleting the very first note. It looks like an original correction and it coincides with an accent "snakebite" and single hole accompaniment levels 2+3 which look like sp...

•Hello Melinda, your message (MMD 981028): > I picked up a Thorens 36-note music box at a antique store Saturday; > they practically gave it to me ($25). It doesn't work, locked up that > is. I had a book that told me step by step how to clean parts, etc. > > I was wondering if anyone knew what I sh...

•[ Re inquiry from new MMDer Melinda Paris in MMDigest 981028 ] It is difficult to guess what might be wrong with your music box without seeing it. However, we have see quite a few of these boxes and repaired some of them. You mention that the box "is stuck." Check the small gear in the governor ass...

•Sounds like you have Thorens that plays three tunes, and the comb has 36 teeth, hence 3/36. There is a MMD participant by the name of Hauke, I believe from Germany, who has a large Thorens collection. Perhaps he'll see your request on the MMD, and respond to you. Larry Greenfield [ See Hauke Marxse...

•Melinda, I expect that there is probably nothing much wrong with your music box if you can look at its parts and see nothing obvious broken. (I know this is a rather rash statement, but if it was not obviously mistreated, it's probably true.) So here's my offer. If you would like to put the little ...

•I have received a badly damaged 8-tune music box in my shop. I've done all the cosmetic work on the works, everything is all set to go, except that the gear which mates with the fly has been damaged due to previous maladjustment. The teeth have been crowned over. I've done my best to true the gear ...

•Nancy Fratti handles an assortment of worm wheels as well as worm gears. Check with her to get what you need. The new gear may not run smoothly until it is worn in. Make sure that the worm wheel is well polished to a mirror finish where the worm wheel runs, and this will greatly aid in the smooth s...

•I've just finished repinning the balance rail on my ongoing built-up project, and seem to have uncovered another problem. Now that the rail pins are all nice and vertical, there are a number of keys that are rather twisted to one side or another. I've tried steaming them, and correcting the twist b...

•Does anyone know of a method of repairing, stabilizing, or strengthen- ing old pot metal parts that have begun to crack and deteriorate, but are not past the point of no return? I know I read an article about this years ago, but can't recall where. Thanks! Hal O'Rourke

•I bought some welding rod for repairing pot metal from an antique car supplies dealer and the stuff works great for repairing breaks or building up worn areas for re-shaping. It can be welded with a "cool" propane flame and requires no flux. After machining there is no visible color difference. Hop...

•Hal, welcome to the Wonderful World of Pot Metal. The inventor of this impure die-cast zinc alloy has been cursed into Hell by more antique collectors than anyone else in history. But somewhere, in my boxes of papers I moved from Chicago to Maine, is a four-page article I saved years ago from a mod...

•Help! I need some suggestions on the following problem. I have a 1926 Steinway with a broken agraffe on the C one octave above Middle C. I have followed the directions in Art Reblitz's book, "Piano Servicing, Tuning and Rebuilding", which suggests using a #2 'Easy Out' to extract the agraffe shaft ...