-- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD --

( I have a request for help from Peter Davis & wondered if
MMD members could help him?  -- Kevin)

Update on the Orchestrelle XY.  As I told you earlier I made the
cardinal mistake of taking things at face value.  The bellows looked
well rebuilt with new covering.  Unfortunately the exhausters are
blowing and the equaliser is leaking.

I managed to get some hot glue into a corner last week but now another
is leaking so I have no alternative but to remove the main bellows unit
and to examine them with the possibility of recovering.  The front
lower case must be removed along with the keyboard, etc.; I expect to
start to strip it down on this Tuesday or Wednesday and then to plow on
until finished.   I must replace the flap valves and there may be a
delay whilst waiting for the leather to arrive.

I am convinced that the pizzicato rank had a wooden cover fixed to it,
covering the pallets over the reeds.  This would have modified the
raucous English Horn reeds.  There are five L-shaped turn screws above
the removable face plate which face upwards; they can only have been
there to hold in the cover. I have asked people but they don't have one
fitted.  It would be so easy to remove and lose.

Peter Davis,
Player Piano Group, London, England