•Hello All, I am restoring a stack for a 1923 Waltham piano, with a late (wooden type) Otto Higel player action. It has been rebuilt before (very well, too I might add), and the pouches in it were covered with zephyr skin. The previous owner did not play the instrument, and when it was infested with...

•Rolls damaged upon rewind by an Ampico A: You may find that your right-side rewind spindle is knurled, thus you can use your finger to drag the rate down or even stop the rewind. You may find that the roll's left flange is loose in its cardboard tube or pushed too far to the right. If loose, it can...

•I owe a great debt to Arno van der Heijden and thought I should share my story with those who know him. I lived in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina. My Weber Unika and 80 rolls were a total loss. The 50 cm Polyphon sat under water for weeks, pinned down by a dresser against an oriental ...

•For some time now I have been debating substituting brass for the rubber tubing in the Mason & Hamlin 1926 Ampico. I have an array of brass tubing from a low-end 5' piano that was beyond restoration. The original tubing in the Mason & Hamlin was lead and is badly deteriorated. The replacement rubbe...

•In a recent posting I mentioned in passing the use of silicone rubber in place of shellac as a sealer for metal valve plates. Actually, here is a complex issue that demands stand-alone treatment. Joining metal to wood in this instance presents a unique situation, wherein screws are used to hold the...

•During my tenure as AMICA Membership Secretary I received a call from the relatives of Lawrence Cook. The call was to find out about AMICA. I told them that Cook's name is well known in AMICA circles and that his piano rolls demonstrated his talents at the keyboard. As the conversation progressed a...

•I left my glue pot unused for a few days, then I returned and found a nice coating of mildew on the glue. I realize I should have (1) reheated the glue every day or (2) put in the fridge. Can anything be added to the glue to prevent the formation of mildew? Thanks, Tom Gregory P.S.: The Wisconsin h...

•I second the motion of Art Reblitz that Colorado is indeed dry and hard on pianos being moved there from a moister climate. I sold a player to an acquaintance of a friend of mine who moved from eastern Nebraska to Longmont, Colorado. I soon got a call that the player had stopped working. To honor m...

•Scotty Greene of DeBence Museum in Franklin, Pennsylvania, asks about the effects of temperature on tuning. As a tuner for many years, I can tell you organ pipes are much more sensitive to temperature than pianos. The biggest culprit is the percentage of relative humidity. The artificial heat of wi...

•I can't tell you the thinking of organ factories, but from a woodworker's perspective, you use plywood because it has dimensional stability, moving about the same amount in each direction, and much less than the cross-grain movement with humidity changes of a plain sawn board. If (and only if) simi...

•I'm hoping someone on the list can help me with this. Our 1928 Lindemann baby grand has suddenly developed strange blotches on either side of the case. It looks a little as it might if someone had started to strip the finish and then changed their mind, but we haven't done anything at all like that...

•I believe my comments have been covered before in MMD, but it bears repeating. The lifetime of my original Duo-Art rolls is not being determined by wear or damage, but the age of the paper. Paper deteriorates over time, due to actual chemical action. Acid content, humidity, temperature all contribu...

•Hi All, A recent posting stated that the volume of air required to collapse a pneumatic was the length times the width times the inside distance between the pneumatic boards at the open end. In truth it is one-half that because one of the cross sections is a triangle, not a rectangle. Additionally...

•Ref. John Grant's inquiry in 140603 MMDigest seeking celluloid labels. I just checked my 1917 Weber Duo-Art upright and saw no evidence there had ever been a label for the Temponomic knob nor for the Theme/treble and Theme/bass switches. The original modify switch, the Play/Rewind switches and Temp...

•Don, Please let us know how that works. I have my doubts, as pot metal deteriorates along the atomic structure alloy lines. There are many theories as to the cause of this self-destruction, most popular one is the presence of lead in the alloy. It takes very little to cause the issue, although I th...

•Someone near me (in Atlanta) has a 1929 art case Mason and Hamlin Ampico "A" for sale, and I told him I'd try to find him a buyer. He has no set price, preferring to take offers. The piano is in the 38,000 serial number range (year 1929) and is a model RT. ("R" for reproducer, "T" for the 5'4" mode...

•From an old Hathaway and Bowers catalog I gleaned a bit of wisdom regarding environment and preservation that I would like to pass on. I don't recall the exact wording, but it said something to the effect that, if one has a classic Duesenberg, it is an unspoken obligation not to park the car outsid...

•Life changes may be pushing me to relocate my Model A 1925 Mason & Hamlin with Ampico reproducing system to the Southern California desert, outside of Palm Springs. The piano has lived most of its life in Los Angeles, though it's been in the San Francisco bay area, which has more humidity, for seve...

•I agree with John Grant, regarding the factory-installed construction plugs on the sides of the intensity valves (2,4,6, 7), each block held in place with four screws. One factor that is sometimes overlooked is this: After years of expanding and contracting from various levels of humidity, slight s...

•I had a similar problem with a Duo-Art grand. The solution was far more simple than some of the other suggestions made here: the legs are loose. If there is any give at all where the piano meets the leg, the piano will shake. Try tightening all of the screws that fasten the legs to the piano. You m...