Those Lovely Aeolian Valves
By Les Smith
Hi, Larry.
I doubt that the problem is with the bleeds, more likely it's with the valve, itself. However to test for a blocked bleed, attach a short length of tubing to the valve nipple (at the same time making sure that the nipple is still securely cemented to the valve block!) and suck on it gently. This will immediately draw the pouch down and if the bleed is working properly, you should detect a small amount of leakage. If you don't, it indicates that the bleed is, indeed, blocked. The bleed, of course, is off to the corner and totally inaccessible. If it is blocked you can try alternately blowing and sucking on the short length of tubing very strongly in the hopes of dislodging the blockage. I suspect however that the bleeds are going to test out OK. Put the play/reroll lever in "play", with a roll in the spoolbox and hit the on switch. Does the play/reroll lever "creep" towards the "reroll" position? If so, it indicates that the valves are leaking enough to partially collapse the reroll pneumatic. Sometimes you can adjust the leather nuts on the wire linkage enough so that the lever "creep" can be eliminated and yet there will remain enough movement in the reroll pneumatic to still shift the player transmission to reroll at the end of the roll. Here you're not fixing the problem, you're merely compensating for it, but it oftentimes works-- for a while. Ultimately you're going to have to replace the valve blocks themselves. I believe that they're still available from American Piano Supply. Those Aeolian players of the 60's, 70's and early 80's have to rank as some of the worst ever made, and are right up there with Wurlitzers and Kimballs of the same era. It's hard to believe that this is the same com- pany that once made the Steinway Dou-Art. Ain't modern technology grand?
Les Smith
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(Message sent Mon 13 Nov 1995, 17:09:16 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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