What's involved
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An 88 note player piano is an incredibly complicated machine that requires a true craftsman to properly restore it to its original operating condition. Most players we receive are just barely playing, and our customers ask, "can you just repair the bellows?". Unless the piano was recently restored, the problem is almost never 'just the bellows'.
There are intricate valves, gaskets, pneumatics, governors, and linkages that work together to make a player piano perform smoothly. It is this system of valves and pneumatics that need to be replaced or rebuilt. This is a tedious process, in that every part to be rebuilt is generally repeated 88 times.
A player piano runs entirely on vacuum, and old leather gaskets and seals deteriorate and start to leak. Eventually the leaks become so great, that there is no longer enough vacuum to run the player mechanism. Rubberized cloth is used throughout the piano, in the form of pneumatically operated 'bellows' or pnuematics. It is this cloth that can become stiff, split open or develop leaks that reduce its effectivness and lead to poor performance.
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Rebuilding Process - Pneumatics
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|  | | A wind motor dissasembled |
| Dissasembly First, an item is carefully taken apart and each component is cleaned. Parts that are badly damaged are either re-made or carefully repaired. Screws and hardware are labeled and placed in containers to keep small parts together and to insure reassembly is done properly. |
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|  | | Pneumatic cloth deterioration |
| Pneumatics cleaning and stripping These small 'bellows' are used to operate the various items of the piano, such as playing each individual note. There are about 95 of these small pneumatics in every upright player piano. The pneumatic bellows pictured here are part of the 'wind motor' that is used to drive the transmission that turns the roll and pulls the paper along. The worn out cloth is carefully removed from the wooden pieces. |
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|  | | A pneumatic being re-covered |
| Pneumatics Recovering The next step is the re-covering of the pneumatic bellows with new rubberized cloth. Special cloth is used which has been impregnated with rubber to make it air tight. The cloth is glued onto the wooden boards with 'hide glue', a strong organic glue that is heat activated and is the exact glue used when the piano was built over eighty years ago. The use of this glue also insures that the parts can be dissassembled when the piano needs rebuilding again eighty years from now. |
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|  | | A re-assembled and tested wind motor |
| Re-Assembly and testing After all of the pneumatics are recovered, the part is re-assmbled. Once again, hide glue is used to assemble the wooden parts for authenticity and ease of future repair. Originally painted parts are usually repainted with genuine lacquer. Metal brackets and pieces can be re-plated (we do our own nickel plating) to bring back the original shine. Screws are either re-plated or replaced. The assembled item is fully bench tested and adjusted to original performace. |
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