Seeing all the postings on this subject in the last MMD, I strongly
feel the urge to put in my 2 cents, as I just finished a restoration
where this issue came into play.

I was called up to do what I thought was a service call on a Model C
Link which was "professionally restored" in the 1980s.  When I saw the
thing, I had to admit, it looked like it was right off the showroom
floor.   It seemed flawless, neat, with chrome tuning pins, all parts
were replated, and the piano action was pristine.

Closer inspection revealed a myriad of problems.  First of all, when
the spool frame was replated, the process weakened the rivets the held
it all together.  The spoolframe split apart and ate the roll that was
in it.  This is a bone of contention with a once-in-a-while customer
who thinks that every metal part must be replated,(even if they weren't
plated at the factory).  The plating process is alright for trim and
other ornamental work, but I use a great deal of caution when considering
mechanical parts and stress bearing members.

After fixing the spoolframe the Link still wouldn't play, so I brought
the stack and the pump to the shop for closer inspection.  Again, the
work was neat, almost all the screws were replaced, but many basic
things where overlooked.  All the screws in the pump were loose and
could not be tightened.  When I disassembled the pump, I found the
screw holes in all the wooden parts were rusted out and dry rotted to
the point that I had to make all new boards.  I also found that all the
glue joints in the stack were weak and easily broken.  To top it all
off, the nice shinny chrome plated tuning pins didn't hold a tuning!

The point here is that, while so much energy was put into making
the thing look new, some things that really needed attention were
overlooked.   Not only do you have the cosmetics to consider in a
restoration, but "what you don't see" as well.

Someone who restores violins once told me that, to properly restore
one, you have to break all it's glue joints and start over.  I'm
finding that mechanical restoration is not just a question of replacing
the soft materials -- broken glue joints and delaminating, some not
visible to the eye, is becoming more common.  Every year my woodshop
gets busier.  I have to remake more components that have been ravaged
by time and/or other rebuilders; as these instruments get older the
question of "how far should one go" gets even deeper.

I have to disagree that a piece should look like the day that it came
out of the factory.  I feel a piece should look as if it has been
miraculously well taken care of, and that it should give the sense that
it has passed though time.

Each piece has to be considered individually, like, for instance, a
Seeburg KT with a bullet hole in the glass from a from a gangster
shoot-out in its original location, or a Weber Unika with cigarette
burns on the keys left by U.S. Army officers who frequented the cafe
where it played during the war.  If these pieces were in my collection
I would leave these things intact as they are as much a part of the
piece's history as the people that made them.

To me, the art of restoration, in the aesthetic sense, is achieving a
very delicate balance between the accurate historical preservation and
mechanical renovation.  Its not so much that I oppose a like-new
restoration -- I think that one needs to ask the question, "Are we
restoring a piece _like new_ as we, in our own time perceive it, or are
we able to look through the eyes and souls of the original craftsman,
and more importantly, the time in which they lived?"

Finally, I would ask the question:  Will someone curse my name twenty
years from now for not doing a proper job?

Brian Thornton - Short Mountain Music Works
Woodbury, TN
http://www.smmwrestorations.com/