(I was cleaning out the emails when I discovered this story I meant
to post last year.  Since there hasn't been a piano horror story
lately, and it's Halloween, I thought I'd lay this one on ya'all.)

  The Ampicoville Horror - Headed For Texas!

A few weeks ago I got a call in from a lady in Nashville.  She had
a Marshall & Wendell Ampico A grand that had been rebuilt about five
years ago and completely quit playing.  She was moving to Dallas,
Texas, and needed it fixed before her move in six weeks.  She assured
me that the rebuild job was professional and the problem may only be
minor.

On my next trip to the Music City I stopped by to take a look.  She
told me it quit a few months after the restoration.  She called the
rebuilder out, he got it playing again, then it quit in a few more
months.  What was really wrong was the previous rebuilder did not
reseal the Bakelite valve seats.  I found some could pop out very
easily.

Here's where it gets gruesome!  When this person repouched, he
glued the pouch board back to the valve block with contact cement.
His solution to the leaky valves on his service call was to inject
a quantity of Neatsfoot oil into the lower valve seat.

Over time the oil leached though the valve seat and onto the pouch
board, dissolving the contact cement, so when I removed the belly cloth
I saw all the little pouch boards hanging loose.  The pouch board and
valve blocks were so permeated with oil as to make any repair
impossible.

I told the lady that I could not do this job in the time she allotted,
and that ended it!

Brian Thornton - Short Mountain Music Works
109 North Cannon Street, Woodbury, TN 37190
tel: 615-563-5814
http://www.mindspring.com/~goatboy/smmw.htm