•You said it. If you consider yourself sufficiently skilled to repair a spring motor, you're sufficiently skilled to build yourself a spring winder: they're not difficult to construct and they make the job far safer and easier. It's usually not hard to repair a spring -- they typically break at one ...

•In 011218 MMDigest Matthew Walworth asked about how to approach the repair of a Gem roller organ. The best plan is to read up on how these organs are made and how they work. Then seek the help of someone in your area who has some experience restoring organettes. Check the MBSI and AMICA publication...

•I realize that there are many people already who repair their rolls and use archival tape to do it with. Nothing wrong with that at all. It's the best tape to use. However, I thought I might mention a few things that you can do with either Scotch "Magic" (frosty) tape or archival tape. The two bigg...

•I recently acquired a number of 1960's QRS and Aeolian piano rolls at an auction. In the lot there were many good rolls which rarely show up in the second-hand market. One of the Aeolian rolls is a cute children's tune with pictures stamped on it. I played it a few times and noticed that I always h...

•I have a small German single singing bird in a cage in need of new rubber bellows. Can anyone lead me to a source? I contacted Ray Lins (MBSI) and he sent me to the clock parts catalog at http://www.slarose.com/ I could not find anything like I am looking for. About five years ago I found another o...

•Hi All, I am looking for suggestions on how to repair a warped sound board on an old (1850s?) street barrel piano. The top part of the frame has been bowed by the tension of the strings, causing the sound board to bow out and press against the strings. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Jack Ha...

•I've had some success, many years ago, repairing 8-track tapes. The tape is standard 1/4" tape with one difference: the tape backing is coated with a dry lubricant so as to make it slide easily in the coil. It will probably be necessary to open up the cassette, observing the location of components ...

•Hi Terry, This is a simple repair. Reassemble the cartridge and slowly pull out more tape from the feeder side to insure that there is nothing binding the tape. Now just hold the 8 track cartridge so the tape opening is facing down, grab a 6 inch section of tape that is hanging from the feeder side...

•Any piano will not play properly if the centre pins are stiff in their bushings. There are about 330 centre pins in the action of an upright piano and even more in a grand piano. Repinning is hardly a task a hobbyist can do properly, for lack of tools, materials, and above all, technique, which can...

•I have a 5 HP repulsion-start, induction-run Century motor driving an Orgoblo pipe organ blower. The centrifugal assembly which pulls the bushes off the commutator and applies a shorting ring seems erratic and probably needs cleaning. Does anyone have any experience in maintenance of this type of m...

•Hello Everyone, There is a page on the cleaning and repair of Century motors and Spencer blowers at: http://atos.stirlingprop.com/kbase/century/index.htm There are a lot of pictures so the page does take some time to load. Hope this helps, Phil Underwood

•-- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD -- Hello there. I am a guy from Copenhagen, Denmark. I've just bought a Polyphon 15.5" and need help for much of the repair. Can you please tell me where I can find help for this project? Best regards Thomas Hendrix Copenhagen

•-- non-subscriber, please reply to sender and MMD -- I have the following questions regarding the repair of cylinder music boxes: 1. What is the best way to polish the brass barrel of the cylinder without disturbing the pins? 2. Is a clock mainspring barrel such as made by Hermle or Kieninger suita...

•> I have the following questions regarding the repair of cylinder > music boxes: > > 1. What is the best way to polish the brass barrel of the > cylinder without disturbing the pins? The best way to polish the brass barrel of the cylinder is to first remove it and use a brass/copper metal polish (s...

•The simple answer to your question is, and this is not intended to put you down, don't even try. The questions you ask suggest that you have little or no experience with musical box repair and also that the box may be very seriously damaged to the point of not being worth fixing in the first place...

•-- non-subscriber, please reply to sender and MMD -- I am restoring an ancient player piano with the Simplex action. I think the governor/regulator needs adjusting. When the bellows are pumped, there is air coming out the flapper valves upon release of each pedal, but the motor and hence the roll d...

•Well, I've been thinking about the problem of the repair of a music box comb. And while I understand that it's a big secret, it's fun to consider some likely alternatives. 1) Silver solder comes to mind first. the old stub and the new piece are ground off, probably at a bevel to increase the area o...

•The current debate on replacing teeth in musical box combs has been of a great interest. One or two of the suggested methods have been nothing short of scary, and if practised, would in all probability result in the total loss of the comb. If an amateur restorer wants to attempt to replace a tooth ...

•Mark Kinsler writes in 030820 MMDigest: > 1) Silver solder comes to mind first. _Please_ delete it from your mind immediately! Causing all the lead tuning weights to melt, de-tempering, distorting and de-tuning the comb is not a good restoration principle. Might be quicker just to throw the music b...

•Please forgive the correction to Mr. Kinsler's note, but there are a couple of mistakes in his posting that could lead to destruction of a musical box comb rather than its repair Let's start out with the basics: If we are talking about a modern musical box mechanism made by Sankyo or Reuge, they ma...