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
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC