Thanks for the tip Ron. I found a vendor in town that sells 3M products and they had a 5 oz. 18 dollar tube of 1099 ScotchWeld adhesive. It was their smallest quantity. I charged the expense to the job. The remainder of the original actuators that hadn’t fallen off yet I was able to break off easily. After removing the four screws that hold the pneumatic assembly to the underside of the keybed, I was able to rotate it around so that I could access the area better. After regluing what actuators I could find with ScotchWeld I left it alone for three days (scheduling reasons mostly). This gave the glue ample time to harden. It has the consistency of rubber cement and is about the same color. I tried to break one off to give the glue a good test. I could feel the pneumatic leaf bending so I stopped. I’m thinking I might try PVCE next time ............ but that may be 10 years from now. The end result was a fully functioning Universal Player Piano short of a few notes on each end. From the factory these pianos were 80 note players. Due to 11 missing actuators this piano is now a 69 note player. The buyer’s intentions will be sufficiently satisfied with this piano’s current capabilities. archival information ....... 7 hours job time. A half hour of this was allowed for glue research and purchase. If I had to do this job in the home, I’d allow an extra hour. The wooden push rods are easily made with quarter inch dowel, 4.5 and 6.5 inches long with 6d inch and a quarter finish nails. The package I found was labeled 17 X 1 1/4 1.4 mm X 31.8 mm. The nail was slightly thinner but worked well enough. 16 gauge is closer in diameter. The small wool punchings used on these push rods for shimming I’ve never seen anywhere else. They’re slightly larger than a quarter inch in diameter. The dealer opted not to have the missing actuators duplicated. Their dimensions are 5/32 (.155 in) X 7/16 X 1 1/16. The hole is a .128 or 1/8 inch and wallowed out so the nail can move freely as the pneumatic leaf moves. The originals were nylon or similar and I’d expect a good hardwood would make a suitable replacement. ScotchWeld should work just as well to hold these on. Lar When reinstalling the pneumatic assembly the guides for the push rods have a tendency to hang up on the keybed making the level of the keys look bad. I gave each guide rail a small push towards the back of the piano and that released them. Prior to doing that I didn’t know they were hanging up however the level adjustment or shimming of the entire assembly was hindered until I did that. Discovering this suddenly released all the “stored energy” and the keys were all level again immensely reducing my frustration with the job. On 9/25/2012 5:10 PM, Larry Fisher RPT wrote: > I remember going to a plastic vendor in town to get some bonding advice > and they had nothing nice to say about this material on the subject. > What’s the latest on this repair?? Anyone have recent experience?? > Lar Sorry (or happily, depending), no direct experience, but have you looked at a nitrile adhesive or the like? Ron N -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121003/b2c96188/attachment.htm>
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