I'm Purist and Proud !

In a little over a year as a member of this forum, I have tried to
stay out of controversial subjects.  I have created controversy --
i.e., my erroneous reporting of the demise of the Reuter pipe organ
with player mechanism in the Brinkley residence in Del Rio TX -- but
as a rule I ignore lengthy discussions on glue, whether reproducing
rolls were really "played by" the artist in question, and similar
topics.  Yesterday's MMDigest contained a reference to "purists" and
I feel compelled to jump in and add my two-and-a-half cents worth.

I started working in a player piano repair shop at the age of 18, in
1954.  (I turned 62 in June; saves subtraction or addition!)  There
were no books, precious few materials, and little knowledge.  The owner
of the shop did not know a whippen from a pneumatic: he was a salesman.
He sold the pianos and somehow we made them work.

We used what was available from Schaff and Tuners' Supply.  We learned,
the hard way, to make diagrams of everything that was still intact,
lest we be left with nipples for which there was no rubber tubing.  We
actively sought out the "old-timers" for every bit of knowledge they
chose to share.  The methods were simple: use what had been used
originally, if we could get it.

I have been through the Perflex, Tygon, and closed-cell neoprene eras.
Those Perflex pouches attached to the blotter paper rings were _so_
easy to use, and so difficult to scrape off when they failed six months
(or less) later.  I am aware that leather is not tanned the way it used
to be.

I have heard people say, "Well, if Perflex had been available in 1920,
the player factories would have used it."  Horse pucky!

In 1972 I opened my own shop and in less than two years I had five
employees.  All had player and piano experience.  They brought with
them many bad habits -- the worst: white glue for player work.  I took
care of that right away as I had already experienced the mess it
creates.

If you look on my web site today under "Player Pianos" you will see
that I chose to show the effects of what white glue can do to a
Standard Pneumatic Action.  If you look closely at the workbench where
the photos were taken you can see a sizable hole hammered there in
frustration with a ball-peen hammer, when I had to split apart the
expression box for a Steinway Duo-Art that had been "repaired" by
some "Shade Tree Johnny," who then glued it back together with copious
amounts of white glue.  The pouches were Perflex, or at least they
_had been_ Perflex.

Better the hole in the workbench than in the twit's head.

If you want to see someone shiver as though they had been thrown naked
into an Arctic night, mention Perflex to any old timer at the Austin
Organ Company in Hartford.  With any amount of luck you will not be
asked to leave the factory.

Leather, quality rubber cloth, twill hose and well-made tubing are
all that should go into pneumatic restoration.  A recent shipment of
tracker-bar tubing from that supply house in Kansas was covered in a
slippery grease-like substance just like that exuded by the Tygon years
ago.  It will slide off a brass nipple by its own weight!  I guess
I could use it for a decorative fountain that drips glycerin down
brass rods!

In my shop I have never used silicone on a pouch, or used automobile
gasket material for Simplex gaskets, or cut out the side of an upright
player piano so there would be room for an Electrolux vacuum cleaner.

I have seen so many "miracle" substances come and go.  Besides Perflex,
the one that gave the most headache was the closed-cell neoprene with
the sticky backing.  The first roll you played, after playing the test
roll on a piano that had valves faced with it, caused the material to
slide to one side and you had to do the whole damned thing over again,
this time with leather -- which is what you should have used in the
first place.

I am a purist.  I recently attempted to build a 20-note organ from
plans I received from "across the pond."  Balsa wood is used for pipes,
and weather stripping is used for gaskets.  The outcome was such a
disaster that I burned the pipes.

It was a cathartic experience not unlike sawing up a square grand
piano with a chain saw.  I only wish I would have been on the beach
at Atlantic City when the convention of music merchants burned a pile
of 1,000 square grands in celebration of the over-strung bass.

Experiment if you must -- just don't do it on someone else's beautiful
reproducing piano, nickelodeon, reed organ, band organ, singing bird-
box, whistling man, cuckoo clock bellows,  trumpeter clock, player
piano, Orchestrelle, monkey organ or anything that uses vacuum or air
pressure to operate.

After 35 years, some of my work is coming home for yet another rebuild.
I am the only one to blame if, in haste, I took a short cut or used the
"latest and the greatest" materials of _that_ day.

Ed Gaida
egaida@txdirect.net