Sting Player Shut-up

[Ron Nossaman]

Hi Daryl,

What you've got here is a case of under-engineering. The shutoff pneumatic is too small to do the job if there is ANY leakage through the valve. There wasn't enough margin for error built in in the first place. The valve is neoprene, nearly twenty years o
ld, has lost flexibility, and leaks. Your tape fix proves that. Make sure both nipples supplying vacuum between the pneumatic and the valve block are well sealed to the wood, and change the valve. Incidentally, all the valves in the system are in similar
shape, so maybe you should be pre-educating the owner as to the dim long-term service prospects ahead.

These things were designed for idiot proof assembly rather than efficiency in use, so they were born mediocre. The best you can hope for from these creatures is a minimally acceptable level of player-like activity. It's tough to service something that nev
er really "worked" in the first place. It's worse when the owner gushes at you about how WONDERFUL the heap is when he/she/'s never seen or heard a real player (in a proper state of restoration, but that's another issue) work.

Good luck, keep smiling, change the valve

Ron Nossaman



At 07:50 PM 5/7/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>Players are not my favorite subject, but I serviced an Aeolian Sting the
>other day that wouldn't shut off after the roll rewound.  I fixed the
>little bugger by taping off about 3/4 of the hole on the shut-off valve.
> After cleaning the tracker bar, checking the reroll tubing, reroll
>pneumatic and cherry switch, I just couldn't figure out what could be the
>culprit.  I stuck my finger over the shut-off valve and it quit.  Now I
>know it works, but why?  I was told by a player guru that shut-off valves
>almost never go bad.  Maybe this one did!
>
>Thanks folks,
>Daryl Matthies
>West Bend, WI
>pianotec@hnet.net
>
> Ron Nossaman