•Wow, I didn't intend for my original question to be controversial, nor for it to be "a race" as Eli suggested (I'm glad you pointed out that aspect). I have ways I do the restoration, and I wondered if I was doing it efficiently. Those of us who rebuild multiple player units are not that many; we a...

•Without getting into complex scientific reasons, what is considered the advantage to the Nylon cloth? The cotton cloth usually takes many decades to fail or rot; usually it is the coating that fails first. If one could glue it with hide glue, I wouldn't ask this as replacing it later would be the s...

•Following our move from Revelstoke to Vancouver Island, we have at last picked up on the re-building of our Nickelodeon. Have just finished rebuilding the stack, which performs beautifully on bench test, having done the usual things to it. Every Perflex pouch must have failed quite early on, as its...

•Skip, Boy, do you have my sympathies! I am still rebuilding a Wurlitzer stack that was "fixed" some years ago by putting it together with that stuff -- Aaugh! It takes (at least for me) automotive lacquer thinner (not hardware store stuff!) to get it out of the pores of the wood enough to use hide ...

•Hi MMD'rs. The attached photo is of a Doyle Lane Lauter Humana Reproduction valve unit I found last weekend in a Nelson Wiggen 5x in Dahlonega, Georgia, while servicing the machine. This valve was manufactured about thirty years ago and originally had Perflex. As depicted in the photo, the unit is ...

•Some months back I remember someone posting here that they were considering doing a run of this cloth, but needed enough orders. Anyone know who that was or what stage the project is in? I know there are 'modern materials' available, but they won't glue with hide glue, and now PVC-E is apparently n...

•I recently acquired a 1934 Marshall & Wendell Ampico B grand piano. I was really excited to get it because it had been totally rebuilt, probably around 1971, by one of the better rebuilders. The piano re-pinned, re-hammered, re-strung and refinished. It has a full Model B drawer and the rest of the...

Hi folks. My name is Karl Ellison and I live in New Britain, Ct. (of Stanley Tool fame). I'm 32, and work as a programmer at a small software house that makes a software product called a Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP-II for short) package that manufacturers use to make stuff with. I own a 191...

Regarding your AMPICO problems... If you are having "cancel" problems, AND INDEED you do HAVE the "A" style Automatic Cut-out with the finger pneumatic, then we shall proceed from here.......... You can only clean out the Auto Cut-out by "backflushing" it. The Tracker Bar Pump is useless except for ...

Hi, In reference to Subject: Why Don't Tracker-Bar Air Filters Exist? (Karl Ellison)Digest 96.09.06. They do exist. Many of the players I've rebuilt have a cheese cloth type material glued to one of the junction blocks between the lead tubes and the pouch chamber. But there are also a lot of units t...

Good Afternoon, I have noticed a marked increase in the number pouch failures in Universal type players and all units using the Wurlitzer type block valves. In the Universal type units, the problem usually starts with the failure of the auto-sustain function and progresses rapidly to the note pouche...

Since the topic of glue has been opened, how about the latest versions of Fish Glue? Allegedly fish glue combines the best features of hot hide glue with the ease of working of cold glues. No need to heat it up, and it gels much more slowly, giving you time to adjust the pieces, unlike hot glues. On...

G'day all - The following comes from the Pipe Organ List (Robbie, is it OK to repost it here?) and would be of interest to many of our members. Does anyone here have any experiences with it? How does it compare with Bilon -- is it the same? ---begin forwarded message--- Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 22:18:2...

•Many years ago Kimball built several models of an electronic player organ. Model 702P was one. The model 500 had the spoolbox mounted in a box on top of the organ; later models had the spoolbox mounted inside the top of the organ under the music rack; it was hinged to move out of the way to put in ...

•Regarding John Mc Clelland's note about the Universal -- I believe that QRS acquired rights to the designs and inventories of parts which once were Universal when it bought Story & Clark. Parts and electronics should be available from QRS in Florida. The original Universal stack deserves a place in...

•D. L. Bullock recently wrote: > I repeat that Zephyr skin can no longer be trusted. However, pouch > leather, AEolus cloth, pneumatic cloth, or the dreaded "Polylon" are > the only things that will work nowadays. A word about Polylon: The Moller Organ Co. introduced this stuff -- a polyurethane coa...

•Jon Page sez: > A local, self-proclaimed expert was perplexed that his second attempt > at rebuilding the secondary valves produced more of a problem. I pulled > apart three valves to examine the pouches. The first one had some > kind of rubber: elastic, but it tore easily. The second had a paper >...

•Hi everyone! Mr. Larry Lobel (Hi Larry!) wrote to ask about the pouches in a 1970's Universal Player Piano. My next door neighbor had one that started missing notes, and after treatment with a tracker bar pump things got worse to the point that nothing played. When I looked at it, I could hear air ...

•I'm Purist and Proud ! In a little over a year as a member of this forum, I have tried to stay out of controversial subjects. I have created controversy -- i.e., my erroneous reporting of the demise of the Reuter pipe organ with player mechanism in the Brinkley residence in Del Rio TX -- but as a r...

•I missed a couple of days of MMD and noticed the stink over "purists." I noticed that the original post that gave short shrift to "US Experienced purists" was about a great inexpensive artificial Chamois. Well real chamois skin is pumped full of chemicals and is way way too porous to use as gasket...