I would like to response briefly to Lee Roan's message on restoration
materials and "purists."  Regarding new construction, I agree that
anyone ought to be free to do whatever he or she wishes.  The
marketplace will be the final judge of the results.  The following
comments apply only to the restoration of old instruments:


1.  Any experienced "purist" has tried all sorts of materials.  We
don't claim to know everything.  On the other hand, we aren't total
fools, and we don't live in dank, isolated dungeons unaware of what's
going on in the world.  Rather, we have found through experience that
original types of materials that have lasted for 50-75 years are nearly
always better than unproven, untested modern substitutes.

The best example of this is the notorious "Perflex" touted by certain
supply companies in the 1970s.  Go back to the promotional literature.
It was cheap, easy to use, and it would supposedly outlast original
materials.

We stodgy "purists" watched it and soon observed that it ballooned
up around the valve stems in certain instruments, shutting off the
vacuum supply to the valves.  We also saw signs of deterioration within
less than a year.  We didn't avoid using it because we live by stupid,
tradition-bound rules; we avoided using it because it was a lousy
product.  I believe that the technician who is just now discovering
how awful Perflex is probably wasn't paying attention 25 years ago.)


2.  One of the quickest ways to damage original wooden parts is to use
white glue, yellow glue, or PVC-E on anything that must be taken apart
during a future restoration.

Please take it from one who has spent far too much time removing these
materials.  In many cases, the glue is more cohesive than the
underlying wood.  To preserve original soft wood parts that are very
costly to remanufacture, we dampen, scrape, scorch, sand, and scrape
some more, all the while breathing toxic who-knows-what in the fumes.
We wear uncomfortable respirators to preserve what's left of our lungs,
and we pay for heating or cooling massive amounts of fresh air that we
blow out of the window with the fumes, just because a novice thought it
was too hard to learn how to use hot glue.

My enduring wish is that I could have found the guy who used yellow
glue on three large Hupfeld Pan orchestrion pumps in the mid-1970s.  It
would have given me great pleasure to have chained him to my bench when
I had to completely restore the pumps in the late 1980s and early 1990s
due to premature failure of materials.  If he had to remove all that
yellow crap (the gummy residue) without damaging the underlying soft
wood, he might have turned to hot glue for his own future use.  Of
course, that guy was out of business by then, so why should he care?)


3.  In a restoration job where over 90% of the overall expense is
in labor costs, it has never made much sense to me to save $25 on
materials that add ten, or perhaps one hundred, times that much in
labor costs during the next restoration.


What restorer isn't delighted to work on an instrument that was never
previously restored or, more rarely, was restored with an eye toward
careful preservation?

Art Reblitz