I just bought one of those orchestrion player pianos from Ragtime
Automatic Music Co. (R.A.M.), with xylophone, snare drum, kettledrum,
Indian block and tambourine.  It doesn't work at all but it didn't
cost much.  The MMD Archive didn't have anything that I could find on
repair of these units.  I thought that something should be added since
I have the problem of repairing this beast.

The big problem is that most of the valves are leaking badly when
turned on.  When even one valve is turned on, the vacuum level isn't
high enough to pull the one pneumatic closed.  This is the first time
I have needed to work with an all-plastic valve assembly and pneumatic.
I am hoping that somebody else will have some other suggestions that
might help me.

I was very surprised by how air tight the valve is when it is operating
properly.  This explains why the vacuum motor is so small in the piano.

Problem #1:  How can I remove the valves that are glued onto the
1/2-inch rods?  Most of the percussion instruments have the pneumatic
valves glued into place rather than just screwed on using screws.
I am sure that this is done because of the force of the beaters moving
the pneumatics out of position. The glue that is used is white in color
and is very brittle.

I tackled the rewind valve/pneumatic first because it leaked very bad
and it looked like the easiest to be replaced with a normal pneumatic
and external valve block if I had problems removing it.  This unit
was glued in place on one of these 1/2-inch rods that is welded onto
the spool box.  I tried scraping the excess glue out of the cracks.
I placed a screwdriver between the plastic and metal rod and tried
pre-cracking the glue around the joint, but the plastic valve assembly
cracked anyway when I tried twisting it off by putting pressure on the
back of it.  Is there another way of removing these valves without
breaking them?

In looking at this problem again, I will try to do the valve repair
while everything is still glued in place.  This will work on all glued
assembles except for the drum with the three beaters.  The pneumatic
cloth looks good so I don't think it will need replacing.  If I had
to recover with new pneumatic cloth, then removal of these parts would
have to take place.

Note: This glue is only used on nine of the pneumatics.  The other 92
pneumatics are attached to the steel rods using screws only; this is
good news!

Problem #2:  The leaking problem is do to the pouch not pushing the
valve up far enough to make a good seal on the upper atmosphere seat.

(A)  The gap between the pouch and the bottom of the valve stem is
about .050 inches and adds to lost motion.

(B) I suspect that the rubber pouch isn't lifting up as far as it
originally did.  This pouch may be the real problem but it would be
a difficult part to reproduce if it can't be purchased from the
manufacture.

I don't think that I want to tackle replacing the pouches on these
valves at this time.  They are made of specially formed red rubber
material.  It looks like a 1-inch plastic jar lid with ridges on the
top.  The red ridge is glued down to a raised ridge and is supported
underneath by a solid surface rather than dished down into a well.

If the rubber pouch shrinks any more, it will pull down rather than
push up, so the gap should be able to be made smaller without worries
about it lifting the valve if the pouch shrinks any more.

Right now I see a simple solution to this problem: *remove the lost
motion*.  What is good about this is that it can all be done without
removing any of the pneumatics, and you don't have to remove any of
the seal cloth that is located on the side of the valve chambers.

The valve and stem is made of a fairly soft rubber and was installed
into the valve assembly by pushing it through the top atmosphere
opening of the valve.  This rubber valve can easily be removed by
fishing it out using a thin wire bent in a shape of an L.

First, remove the soft red felt that serves as a dust filter for air
entering the valve.  Now insert the wire in the valve opening found on
top of the valve.  Move the end of the wire under the bottom of the
rubber valve.  Now pull one corner of the soft valve out of the top of
the hole and the rest of it should follow without any damage.

I plan to glue a .040-inch thick spacer to the end of the rubber valve
stem and then push the valve back through the same hole.  The valve can
then be tested to see if it seals well when either on or off.  I will
have to be extra careful to make sure that the spacer isn't too thick
and lifts the valve off of the bottom seat under low vacuum.

The only problem with this is that these spacers will probably come off
the next time the valves are removed.  It might be better to glue the
spacers directly on the pouch.  This would eliminate this problem.

Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how this repair can be
done?

Pete Knobloch (Tempe AZ)