To John Tuttle:  I was not flaming or discouraging you from your
database, I just am unable to give what you ask.

I have lots of things that came from God only knows where.  If I
know where the parts came from, I mark it with chalk or tie on a
tag.  I still come across parts left in gut jobs and those get marked.
However, 90% of my player parts came from a retired or deceased tech-
nician who got it from another tech who got it from ... you get the
point.

You are right about my ambivalence about the parts.  There is a love/
hate affair with them.  I resent storing, moving, keeping all of them,
but I won't get rid of anything, because more than once they have saved
the day.  From time to time they have given me the opportunity to
restore a fine instrument that everyone else has written off because
they did not have the parts to replace the missing player.  They are
not a money maker for the most part, however.

I have found one piano with a yutz who replaced the wind motor with an
electric motor and a sewing machine speed control.  The player was
still foot pumped so I guess you needed a second person to step on the
motor control.  :-) I looked and found the exact wind motor from my
collection and stuck it into the piano for whenever it gets restored.
The piano is in the stacks of available pianos.  It will cost no more
than it would have if it did not have the replacement part I supplied.
($250.00)

I see no possibility of making enough money from parts to make it
worth my time to catalog them.  I am at least a year behind in jobs,
but I have not cut off new jobs at this time, because we are able to
turn them out reasonably well.  We use a waiting list and when it
reaches what I believe to be two years, I stop taking new contracts for
a while.  Presently I am taking no more square grand restorations.

Anyone who needs parts is more than welcome to come to St. Louis and
look for what they need.  At this time the collection is boxed up but
soon I hope to have new space in which to shelve and file them once
again.  I keep the parts just like the junk player pianos -- only to
prevent them going to the landfill.  I know that some of the ones I
turn down go there.

I now turn down 90% percent of what is offered to me.  Seldom does a
week go by that someone does not offer me a player piano.  With over
200 pianos and players stored, I simply do not have space to put more.
I must save what little space is there for important instruments like
reproducers.

I believe that if I had 100,000 square feet and a free moving crew,
I could fill it in a year or two with instruments.  I could probably
increase my parts collection if I took the parts out of the players
I turn down, then I would at least know what piano they came from.
Time does not allow that either.

Good luck in your database project.  Come see us sometime!

D. L. Bullock    Piano World    St. Louis