Player Query

[Ron Nossaman]

 It's
>quite a while since I did one of these and I can't seem to track down how
>long the last one took.  Any ideas on hours involved?
>
>Stephen Powell RPT


You didn't say if this was a recent unit that had been, perhaps, eaten by
unspecified rodentia, or an old 20's era player that is on it's way to
Valhalla via honest entropy. Going with the prevailing odds, I'll assume
the latter.

The day and a half to two days that others have mentioned is about right,
depending on the model, whether things are gasketed or glued, and the
amount of disassembly disaster recovery that's necessary. If you're
relatively deft at applying tape stitches, it can go pretty quickly. I'm
with John Dewey here as far as being cautious in your expectations. The
problem with non-working (old) players is almost NEVER the pumpers.
Virtually EVERY player owner that I've talked to has self diagnosed the
problem to either the "bellows" or the "hoses". True, a well rebuilt set of
pumpers will sometimes move enough air quickly enough new "hoses" to
partially overcome the cumulative leaks in the stack and let the player
make enough semi-organized noise to appear to be working... sort of.
Problem is, as the old monster movies show us, old dead, dried up mummies
that are pressed back into service after a number of years of quiet repose
tend not to hold up well unless they are thoroughly reconstituted
beforehand. The perishable parts - ALL the perishable parts - have perished
and don't re-animate all that well. The stack needs rebuilt too, as well as
the piano (realistically). If you do end up doing just the pumper assembly,
do it all. Scrape to bare wood at all joints, re-hinge bellows, new flap
valve leather, new gaskets and slide valve leather, new leather nuts, stack
cut-out pouch and valve leather, etc. That way, when you have to go back
later to do the rest of it, you can depend on the quality of the lower unit. 

Here in Kansas, they usually just click their heels together three times
and make a wish. ( Heavy sigh. )


Ron N