[pianotech] Pianola

[Ron Nossaman]

Oh boy, what a treat (imagine my excitement). This morning, I 
had a service call on a little Pianola player. It's a 64 note 
spinet, with two string unisons, and an Aeolian player system 
shoehorned inside. It's strictly manually (pedally) pumped, as 
there's no room inside for a suction box. As I was making the 
appointment, I remembered this piano from WAY back, but 
scheduled it anyway. Call it curiosity. When I got there this 
morning, I got the list of assignments. One key down, and 
check the player over. The "key down" was a warped hammer 
shank that put the hammer between unisons, where it stuck like 
a tennis ball in a chain link fence. Got that pried loose and 
managed to burn the shank straight enough to not repeat the 
problem, without actually catching either myself or the hammer 
on fire - at least, not much. Another floating hammer proved 
to be the sticker wire nut that had come out of the key end. 
That was it for the "repairs". Checking out the player was 
equally challenging. First, the pumper pedal bracket was loose 
on one side, like a bolt had fallen out. Took the knee board 
off, and found it was a rivet, swaged on the end to keep the 
bracket in place, but the hole was as big as the swage, and 
the bracket had slipped off. I sprung the bracket back in 
place on the rivet, and massaged the swaged end big enough 
with my vise grips, to retain the bracket. Good enough. Then I 
tested the player. Everything worked, at least reasonably 
well. Last service was in 1984, 26 years ago, by me. I'd 
marked off the morning for the thing, dreading hours in dark 
corners I could neither see nor reach, but we were done in 
about 20 minutes. He decided it didn't need either cleaned, or 
tuned, so that was that.


So, back to the shop for me.
Ron N