Introduction
By Eric Bergstrom
Hello everyone! My name is Eric Bergstrom and I would like to introduce myself. I am a 38 year old electrical engineer/business owner from the Chicago western suburb of Saint Charles. I have been an amateur player restorer for a good 10 years now, working on many components of various model players, reproducers, and nickelodeons, just like many of you. I recently discovered the Internet and was happy to see a site devoted to discussions on the mechanical music subject.
My most current project is a 65/88 note Aeolian Pianola push up player, which was a complete tear down and reconstruction project. It is kind of special, as it will be used in the first week of April during a 'Birthday festival for the player piano" presented by the Chicago AMICA. It will feature Rex Lawson and Dennis Hall of London, who are internationally known pianolists. The festival will be a 5-day event presented in Aurora and Sugar Grove, Illinois. I will post full information as soon as I find out who the main contact is.
In the process of this restoration, since so many parts needed replating, I did the necessary research and successfully learned how to do my own small scale Nickel plating! This required a slight investment, but allowed me to justify plating everything...screw heads, levers, brackets, etc. I am totally satisfied with the results, but learned that the time required to plate is 95% prep work. The actual plating takes minutes, but the prep work takes hours. If anyone is interested in more details I can discuss it some more.
I also am heavily involved with antique radio restoration, and have started collecting them... that's a different subject. One thing's for certain, radios are MUCH simpler to get up and running. Just as in player actions, there were a zillion different ways to make a radio! Both are fun to work with and extremely satisfying. Being an electrical engineer, the radios are usually pretty easy to fix. Does anyone know of a digest for antique radios? If anyone is looking for someone to fix their older radios in the western Chicago area, please get in contact with me.
Enough already - thanks for listening to me. I look forward to the digest and hearing from such a diverse group of readers. Sincerely,
Eric Bergstrom
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(Message sent Thu 27 Feb 1997, 19:29:27 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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