--- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD ---

 From: RestoWorks@aol.com (Ronn Solters)(fwd)
 To: webmaster@foxtail.com
 Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 23:48:50 EST

Subject: Refinishing a 58-note Organ

Greetings from "Restoration Land"!  I have a restoration shop in
Branford CT and have a few suggestions for you.

In cases like this 58-noter, I would not hesitate to use Bondo to fix
up all the wood.  When painting a piano some that come into my shop are
so bad most people would trash these instruments.  But Lo and behold:
Sometimes there are diamonds in the rough; It is just very hard to
tell upon initial inspection.

I am presently restoring for myself a Mason and Hamlin Model 5 built in
1886, the fifth year of production for M&H.  In this case I am going to
restore it with new veneer as it is needed.  In your case, where it
will be painted, I would shore up the edges with fiberglass reinforced
Bondo, sanded and coated with regular Bondo, sanded and followed by
feather coat, sanded level with varying grits of sandpaper, pores
filled, primed, sanded, nitro-stained, primed again, sanded again, and
about 15 coats of excellent quality lacquer, or polyester base coat,
sanded between coats with wet dry down to 1000 grit and finally coated
with three to five coats of a compatible clear coat, wet sanded, and
rubbed out with the proper medium.

The term "Piano Finish" alludes to the finest finish possible on a
wooden surface.  It is labor intensive, very physical, and will demand
every mental, material, and physical resource you have available.  I've
been twenty five years in this game and I'm still learning everyday.
I have jobs that sometimes make me feel like I don't want to do this
work anymore, but the challenge gets me all the time and keeps me going
because 99% of the general population never finish projects they start
or they do the project and complete it with questionable quality.

I am comfortable in the knowledge that I see every job through from
start to finish and sure, I don't always feel that my work is not up to
snuff but everyone I know tell me I'm tooo much of a perfectionist and
see things nobody else will ever notice.  Life is not fair and things
sometimes things don't turn out the way we envision them.  What can I
say; the world is not perfect!

Good luck on your project.  See the project through, and do it right.
In this business knowledge and equipment, and applied science, is
everything.  Good equipment only!

Ronn Solters / Restoration Works / RESTOWORKS@aol.com