Introduction / Ampico Rebuilding
By Bruce Clark
Hi! My Name is Bruce Clark, and I live in Interlaken New York. I have been working with player pianos and reproducing pianos since 1946! I am now retired, and think of the days when I rebuilt Ampico players for $300. and thought that it was great. I lived in Rochester not far from the Ampico factory. On several occasions I had to go to the facory to find parts. By that time no one knew much about where or what anything was. I had free reign over a big and dirty room filled with parts, new and empty roll boxes, and even a few things that I did not know what purpose they served. I started going out to the factory about 1957, and later heard that Larry Givens had purchased the roll cutting machinery minutes before the scrap men were coming. I remember a Mr. Wells Benedict, and a Mr. Max Dechau who still serviced Ampico pianos. They were getting on in years, and it was difficult for them to crawl under pianos, and they were actually trying to retire, but not many people knew how to repair Ampico pianos. I learned some from them, and als from a Mr. Georgr Binder who worked for a different piano company on Water Street in Rochester.
[ Regretably, this message got truncated during transmission. I called
[ Bruce and had an interesting conversation with him. He's semi-retired
[ now, but did Ampico restoration for years and is happy to answer questions
[ about restoration and possibly historical information about the factory.
[ He's listed in the phone book in Interlaken.
[
[ Jody
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