•Re removing front rail bushings: try Everclear(tm) grain alchohol to remove these (no kiddin'!). Put it on the felt then let it sit for 15 minutes. They should pull right off. If you get some sticky ones, apply more and let sit 15 more minutes. But if there is white glue on the felts... Good luck! ...

•To remove tape from fragile music rolls is quite a task, especially if the roll is very old and the paper is beginning to deteriorate. I have had success using kerosene. Brush it on with a small brush, and let it soak in for about 15 minutes. Usually this will soften the adhesive. Slowly peel back ...

•Isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol) is usually good for removing adhesive tape of the usual plastic type. It is also harmless to most plastics and not so inflammable as some solvents. I haven't tried it on rolls but it should work. Regards Don Cox doncox@enterprise.net

•I remember reading that Coleman fuel has additives that might leave a residue. They are added to protect the appliances and are not volatile. It might be better to use pure naphthalene to remove adhesives. This is the base for the Coleman fuel and can be gotten as a purer product. I have had good b...

•Hi everybody; I'd like to add a couple of comments to Bruce Clarks posting in yesterday's MMD (990215). Maybe the first solvent to try is alcohol. If it doesn't work then at least it evaporates very quickly and you can move on to kerosene. (Here in Australia I would use white spirit rather than ker...

•Thanks to everyone who responded to my request concerning how to remove fiber tape from music rolls. I was able to remove the tape using acetone. I chose that product simply because that's what was most easily available to me. I have salvaged the title and number of the roll, and shall do a proper ...

•Craig Brougher writes in 990305 MMDigest: > The best way to remove that [old leather] is first by scraping, > and then wetting it, letting it soak a short while, and then just > rolling it off. You can get 100% of it off that way. In my restoration of old mechanical organ bellows I use an old elect...

•Hello to all, I am about to move a Chickering Ampico grand into my new digs (1 year lease on a house). I have a maximum of about 18.5 inches (along the line connecting points (A) and (B) in diagram) of horizontal clearance coming in the basement door due to a stairway just inside the doorway. There...

•I am currently involved in a nightmarish restoration due to the fact that the "technician" before me used gasket material that was too hard and the wrong side out. In an attempt to compensate by sealing the chests he liberally smothered the wood in liquid silicone goop, the kind that is used in sho...

•On the subject of removing silicone sealer from bodged up instruments, I recently had to remove a quantity of it from a set of feeders (pump) from a Mortier organ. It seemed to have been used as a kind of panacea to resurrect a dying organ from its sickbed! Needless to say, it hadn't worked. I foun...

•Hi, I'm wondering if anyone has any good method of removing a cylinder from the mandrel of an Edison Concert/Opera player. This is the 5" diameter cylinder. It was put on when the player was put in the attic more than 35 years ago. Unfortunately, the cylinder already has a crack in it and I may not...

•Some years ago I had a similar problem. I stood the machine on end and propped it there for a few days while I let a bit of WD-40 work its way down. I think it was about a week or so when I was able to remove the cylinder without and damage to it or the player. The mandrel diameter was less than fi...

•Years ago I found some rare Edison 2-minute B series opera cylinders at a flea market. They had been sitting in the hot sun all day in their boxes. When we got home I eagerly stuck one of the still warm cylinders on the cold mandrel of my cylinder phonograph. After playing the record, to my horror ...

•Hi, It will probably take quite a while before I have the time to start working on my Steck Duo-Art player (except for replacing tubing). Meanwhile, I've picked up piano lessons again and I'd like to have the piano itself repaired, cleaned, adjusted, tuned, etc., by a technician. However, there's o...

•Patrick Boeckstijns enquires about removing rust from the rods connecting the control levers to the player mechanism. If the rods are plated, and are only lightly pitted with rust, a rust-dissolver gel or fluid should work well, as long as it is washed off afterwards, and the rod is then carefully ...

•Greetings -- To the multitude of clever people who read MMD, I pose the following question: What is the best way (not necessarily the easiest, but that would be fine too) of removing the ubiquitous dust that collects on the soundboard beneath the strings of a grand piano? Thanks. Regards Mike Ryan ...

•Hi MMDer's, With all this talk of white glue, I thought I would mention a convenient way to remove it. I rebuilt an Ampico pump a while back that had been covered in the stuff, and just when I thought I was out of ideas, I tried sharpening up a hand plane (wood plane) and used that to slice the glu...

•At the risk of initiating another discussion on turntable speeds, does anyone know how to make 45 rpm records sound less scratchy? The scratches were possibly caused by an old, worn-out needle years ago so it's not just a matter of cleaning the records well. I would appreciate any suggestions. Joyc...

•Polishing with "Brasso" or similar metal polish is very effective for removing scratches from CDs. It should be similarly effective on vinyl discs! ;-) At the professional end of the market, there are real time software tools made by a UK company called Cedar. These are used (and abused) by people ...

•Joyce Brite had requested info on removing scratch sounds from vinyl and LP recordings. Back in the "Good old days" (1970s, I guess) there was a company which produced an audio device which sampled incoming signals (phono record signals, e.g.) on a constant basis (many times per second). When the s...