•Darrell Clarke enquires about other methods of getting thin strips of tape from a roll of Filmoplast. I pull 3 or 4 cm of tape off the roll and the backing automatically separates, as Darrell says. I have a pair of long-bladed hairdresser's scissors and I hold them open and place the strip of tape ...

•I've been reading the thread on roll reading techniques with great interest. With the help of a friend, I plan to begin some experiments of my own this spring, and all this information is most helpful. Meanwhile, all I have is my player piano, so Spencer Chase's frustra- tion of trying to play dama...

•Jack Niewoehner asks where he can get good calfskin for making snare drum heads. I have an Arburo jazz organ with a set of metric size drums with the original cowhide drum heads. I tried the best drum suppliers (I'm in Canada), but they couldn't match up heads for metric-sized drums. However, they ...

•Hello all, This question may be a bit on the far edge of the main interest of this group, but it is related to antique player piano repair, albeit maybe loosely. I just acquired an old four-legged piano stool with a claw and glass ball on the bottom of each of the legs. The stool is one in which th...

•I have a reed organ in the shop that the mice have had a good time chewing on. "I hate mieces to pieces!" -- Sylvester J. Pussycat, Warner Bros. cartoons. However they do make a nice "fphweeqquue" sound going up the hose to the shop vac. Two adjacent reed cells were more gone than were there. I got...

•Hi All, My friend Bill was impressed with the quick response about someone to repair his aunt's Bruder-Soehne band organ. He got information and/or offers to repair it from Art Reblitz, Bob Conant, and Jim Arnold. Also, Ron Bopp requested a picture to include in an upcoming edition of the Carousel ...

•Hello, I have just been sent one of those brass German singing birds that are very common, and the guy wants it repaired. I guess the age to be 1970, give or take 5 years. The bellows are white plastic and covered in what looks like a condom. (Can I use that word here?) Has anyone ever repaired one...

•Dear Brian Chesters, I had one of these to repair, a couple of years ago. I used a condom to replace the bellows rubber but found it difficult to seal the ends and maintain the correct tension. Someone before me had used a contact adhesive which needed cleaning off the sealing rings, and then I use...

•Brian Chesters asked about repair of singing bird cages with the "condom type" bellows. I have repaired perhaps a couple dozen of these, and can attest they are without a doubt the most difficult to repair of all singing bird cages. To answer Brian, no, you can _not_ use a condom to repair them. Th...

•Harvey Roehl was asking what he should do to get his Ampico B motor armature rewound [991111 MMDigest]. That is a common problem with that motor, by the way. I have a local motor shop here in town that knows of a small motor shop somewhere in California they send them to be rebuilt. You can ohm out...

•QRS Advocates Scotch Tape Repairs? I received my 100th Anniversary Issue QRS catalog in the mail Saturday. On Page 66, "Player Piano Pointers", Q&A No. 5 section answers the question, "How can I repair old rolls," with a response of "All it takes is patience and Scotch Magic Tape!". Indeed, their P...

•The MMD has previously published many discourses concerning which glues or adhesives are suitable for repairing pianos and/or piano rolls. Here's a new twist for you: What method do you recommend for repairing piano roll boxes? How do you repair boxes with the end flaps torn off or sides split open...

•Hi Everybody. Because of Y2K fears, my university shut down everything during the Christmas-New Year break (it's summer holiday time here in Oz anyway), so I've only just read Joyce Brite's query about music roll box repairs in MMD 991229. I do a _lot_ of roll box mending; in fact it almost got me ...

•As the majority of my first rolls were ancient, baked, brittle, water stained, disintegrating, bug-eaten, even moldy, not to mention the many broken collars, ripped leaders, and shredded sides, I started repairing rolls, as soon as I got my first batch last year. I have had some very gratifying res...

•Piano plates can crack for different reasons. One typical scenario is failing of the pin block glue joint: the string tension pulls the pin block forward, and 'voila'! I own and fixed such a piano; it has been fine for 15 years. Every plate crack needs to be individually evaluated. Some are benign...

•As a new subscriber I thought I would like to share some information on a little 1976 Duo-Art (at least it looks exactly like the picture you have on your picture archives) that has come into my possession. There was some discussion last year regarding one from Australia, I believe. The piano was n...

•The RTV sealer thread reminded me of a zinc pipe in particular from the 1927 Kilgen I removed. It was a lesson in how _not_ to repair pipes in an organ. I will describe the repairs done to it and a few others and later scan a photo for my web site showing it. The pipe was originally mitered. It is ...

•Since it is only one flange on the continuous brass flange rail that is broken, I would suggest using a repair clip of the type sold by Schaff or American Piano Supply. One can have the rail duplicated by the above companies, but I have used many of the repair clips over the years and have found th...

•I just bought one of those orchestrion player pianos from Ragtime Automatic Music Co. (R.A.M.), with xylophone, snare drum, kettledrum, Indian block and tambourine. It doesn't work at all but it didn't cost much. The MMD Archive didn't have anything that I could find on repair of these units. I tho...

•[ Ref. 010821 MMDigest, Seek Repair of Olympia Disc Music Box ] I will preface my remarks by stating that I have no experience with Olympia disc boxes, but I have brought a Regina back to life from the dead. In any event, there is much similarity in the mechanisms in many regards. I don't think you...