Sometimes we are faced with problems we cannot answer and we have
to make the best of them.

I started rebuilding players before 1950.  At that time, quality
pneumatic cloth had not been manufactured since the 1920's and 30's.
Bellows and pneumatic cloth that was available from piano supply houses
most likely, was left over from the era.  Newly-manufactured bellows
cloth was very poor quality and so stiff it would hardly fold.

As "pioneers" in the player rebuilding business we had no choice but
to do our best and find substitutes.  For pneumatics, we used camera
bellows cloth from Eastman Kodak Co.  Some of it was excellent quality
and lasted many years.  Finding quality leather at that was not a
problem.  It was easily found at pipe organ supply houses.

Finding correct size rubber hose was more difficult.  Tracker bar hose
most likely was left over from the 1920's and 30's and was still sold.
Most of it was good quality and we bought it until the supply ran out.

The first new hoses were inconsistent and one was never certain if
it would be the correct size.  I remember buying new hose only to find
the inside diameter was so inconsistent it could not be used for
anything.  In the 1960's I bought gray rubber tracker bar tubing that
looked like the original used in reproducing pianos, but within six
months it cracked and fell off!  I had to make it right at my own
expense.  How often have we done that?

What an awful feeling it is to spend hundreds of hours meticulously
restoring a player with the finest materials that we _thought_ we were
purchasing, only to find the materials have aged by 80 years in only
a few months.

We have been through the nightmares, and headaches, yet we still
continue to hope for the best.  Restoration will remain a gamble.
We take advice, do our best and hope everything will be okay.

I'm aware of the notorious plastic hose oozing.  We called it "the
green-slime-syndrome".  The only solvent I could find to dissolve this
goo was methylene chloride, a deadly solvent that may have caused some
health problems in recent years.  And what about the lead dust that
accumulates from lead tubing and elbows found in players?  Where does
all that lead oxide dust go when we switch on the Ampico, or pump our
lead-tubed players?

We listened to the old timers, and used recommended materials.  At
first things went well.  Then, slowly the quality of new materials
from well-known suppliers became inconsistent.  It was not the
suppliers fault.  It was the fault of the materials manufacturers,
who became greedy, cut corners and cheapened their products to make
more money, or thought they knew better and experimented with new
ingredients at the expense of conscientious restoration experts.
Innocent suppliers were then stuck with thousands of yards of good
looking bellows cloth that had the strength and longevity of a piece
of bubble gum.

Yep, I purchased the "nice" twill covered hose, from a well-known
supplier at _great_ expense, only to find it irregular in inside
diameter and thickness.  Within a couple of years, it had lost its
elasticity and was leaking at the nipples.

What was I to do?  Spend another $150.00 to buy more of it?  No, I went
to a farm equipment supplier and purchased plastic hose for milking
machines.  It cost about 39 cents per foot.  It is the correct size,
and after 10 years is holding up much better than the "proper" hose
replacements.

The same goes for modern leather and bellows cloth.  I listened to
rants and raves about the very best and paid large amounts of money for
recommended "proper materials" only to discover them failing within a
very short time.  There is no guarantee for "quality".  The only test
is _time itself_.  At the moment I am testing a sample of miraculous
bellows material someone has recommended.  I will test it for ten years
before I decide if I will use it.  Gee -- if it tests good, I will buy
more of it in 2016.

What really puzzles me is why some of the 80-year-old rubber cloth is
still air tight and pliable, while that which I purchased in 1999 is
useless?   With modern technology, why can't we do some research and
use the original formulas for these old time-tested and quality
materials and replicate them?

I have a feeling that even in the early years, there was a problem with
quality control.  For example, I restored the stack from a Steinway
Duo-Art.  The stack was completely original, it never had been removed
from the piano.  Amazingly, about two-thirds of the pneumatics were in
perfect condition, but the remainder were as crisp as a potato chip.
Upon examining the cloth, I found the two to be different.  Apparently
whoever made the pneumatics ran out of material and had started using
a different batch.

Bruce Clark
(retired, thankfully)