•The first thing I'd check would be the humidity where the piano is kept. Also, if the piano is a grand and the owner(s) insist on keeping it open, it makes the strings that much more vulnerable to moisture problems. Jim Moore

•We moved an Autopiano made in 1919 from Maryland (high humidity) to San Diego (moderate humidity, seasonal) and then four years later to central Utah (extremely dry summers) where it was stored in a storage unit with no heat or cooling from June to the following March. No problems with the piano it...

•[ Ref. "Humidity Control in the Desert, or Anywhere" Hi all, early in my association with player pianos I found that varying humidity was a problem, and as a mechanical engineer I work on solutions. First I noted that gaskets, especially new cork ones, would develop leaks and I solved this by using...

•Jonathan Holmes wrote in 010824 MMDigest, "Humidity Control for the Piano & Dampp-Chaser": > I have a great worry about some of these historic instruments, such > as large fairground organs (band organs) being played on the rally > field. They are generally in a lorry or van, the sun is heating the...

•The best thing you can do for a piano is keep the temperature and humidity in the room containing the piano as constant as possible. The best thing is a climate controlled environment, but many of us cannot incorporate this into our heating or cooling systems. Instead, I suggest piano owners purcha...

•Temperature may affect the speed of sound, but temperature and humidity affect the wood that organ pipes are often made of. Therefore, it seems to me that a table from real experience may be more reliable than a simple formula, although the formula will give you an appropriate length to scale the p...

•In MMD 2004.07.16.08 Charles D. Lightfoote asked about the effect of heat and humidity on pitch as it relates to pipe organ tuning. Partial replies were given in MMD 2004.07.17.01-02 and 2004.07.19.06. Having earlier discussed this to some depth in the MMD Pipes Forum I ventured to rework my materi...

•Just a thought about the wood selected for a player action stack. Humidity is of great concern when it comes to woods. After moving from stable, 55% humidity in Seattle, I found that the desert really does a number on instruments. The Duo-Art and the Ampico are situated in the same room, yet have g...

•Hi All, Karl Peterson raised some interesting points with his posting about trying to keep the humidity at just 30% in frigid weather when a house doesn't have moisture barriers. In years past, we have had similar problems here in New Jersey, but the winters have been quite mild for the past few ye...

•I've found that modern round leather belting works amazingly well on instruments used in indoor settings with reasonable humidity control, if the groove in the motor pulley matches the one in the pump pulley, if the belt is the right cross-sectional diameter to fit well in both grooves, and if the ...

•The valves in my upright Marshall & Wendell were sealed with white glue. Following a humidity catastrophe, 30 or so valves have the valve travel reduced to almost nil. (Climate change makes for occasional use of my swamp cooler.) Since I like the tone and the cabinet resonance, I'm keeping the pian...

Darrell Clarke asked about pneumatic covering material. I have tried to steer everyone away from trying to use "pouch" leather for pneumatics for that very reason-- they deteriorate, depending on your climate and the amount of bacterial activity supported by your humidity and temperature. The old le...

Reminiscences of strange service remind me of the time I started buying rolls by mail from Aeolian-American in the 1960s. Of course these were intended for their new little console players, none of which ever worked well in England because of the humidity, but for me, a player nut for whom Aeolian w...

I believe the Remo brand synthetic skin drum heads are best. They look real and are unaffected by humidity, thus needing little "tuning". I tried to get them directly from Remo, but you need to be a dealer. Mike Kitner (Carlisle, PA), an A-1 band-organ restorer, gets his drum heads from this firm. T...

•Terry Smythe was worried that the Ampico pump he is rebuilding will give problems because the pump crankpins are rusted and rough from water or humidity. I think they will be all right, Terry. Just turn a little crocus cloth around them, or knock off the rust with a rotary wire brush and then polis...

•Greetings! About the turbine suction units overblowing: I once was called to an antique store in the Vieux Carre' to investigate a Weber Grandezza that was smoking. It had been restored somewhere "up North" and played beautifully for a while until it got a whiff of our humidity. Turns out the resto...

•This is a two-part response. The first part is based on my experience. I have had two good rebuilds ruined because of high humidity which caused the pouches to shrink so much that they floated the valves. In the case of the Ampico the customers house was so damp that after a few months there was mo...

•I visited MMDer Bob Fine today and hoped to hear his Wurlitzer Style C orchestrion, but the not-quite-finished restoration was suffering from the sudden heat and humidity in So. Calif. -- the rubber hoses were falling out of the holes in the rear of the wooden tracker bar assembly! What sort of cla...

•The Pianista upright piano I'm attempting to restore seems to have some separation of the ribs from the soundboard in the area of a small crack in the soundboard. Is this a condition that gets progressively worse, given relatively stable temperature and humidity? The piano has recently been brought...

•To return to problem on my piano: the tuning pins were as near perfect as you can get five years ago when I last tuned. I had the room hotter since acquiring a computer, which I am sure decreased the humidity quite a lot. The piano is circa 1930's console, a Weber, Kingston, Canada. One of the best...