Restoration of a Bush & Lane/Welte for Kim Davis
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151) The new pin block has been glued in using the plate to
position it. The original stretcher board which runs in front of the pin block was
originally just screwed into place and held floating in that area. The new design
affixed this board to the rim of the piano using epoxy and dowels to reinforce the joint.
The pin block was then glued into place and to this board to make for a full fit
that increases the stability of the block. This improves tone, sustain and tuning
stability. Because of the original design of the piano, getting the pin block glued
and doweled into the case was a major undertaking which required remaking the rim to
accommodate it in places.
152) The plate is reguilded and all bearing points restored. Now the finished
plate is installed and the case padded off in preparation for restringing.
153) This picture shows the hammers being bored to fit the piano and the other photo
here shows them being mounted. For years I have allowed my hammer supplier to do the
boring and shaping of my hammers. However, my quality standards are very high and it
has become impossible for my supplier to meet my expectations without the piano in his
presence. Therefore, I now bring in the hammers in a more basic condition and bore
and shape them myself. This enables me to correct factory errors and to make for a
better fitting and sounding finished product. This set of hammers, in fact, was the
set which convinced me to start boring and tapering my own. These had been bored and
tapered at the suppliers but they were all wrong. I had to plug the original bore
holes and redrill the hammers at a different place to get the best finished product.
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154) A photo of the piano on its side ready to have the
rebuilt player mechanism reinstalled.
155) The various parts of the Welte mechanism are installed and tubing them together
has begun. I start with tubing the large main feed lines because they are the
hardest to do.
156) The entire system has been tubed up. Although this design of mechanism is
one of the simplest designs used on reproducing pianos, it is one of the hardest to tube
up because of problems with clearances and also because many of the tubing connections
have one size nipple at one end of the tube and a different size at the other. You
can see in this photo that the motor and pump are installed but no belt is running between
them yet. This mechanism uses a very slim belt that had to be special ordered and
wasn't in yet. The motor, by the way, had been taken out to an electric motor
winding specialist to have the wire leads replaced. I replaced the oiler wicks and
all other wiring in the system myself.
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157) The cover that is made of wood and conceals the
pneumatic stack has been fitted and installed and the vinyl cover the conceals and muffles
the expressions and pump have been made. The vinyl cover had to be custom made in
the shop and all the snaps that hold it in place installed by me. Usually we use
black snaps for this job but this piano contains a huge number of snaps and there weren't
enough black snaps in the entire city to do the job. I resorted to using nickel
plated snaps which actually look nicer to me anyway. You can see the electric cord
rolled up in the area of the piano that has no mechanical components. I was able to
reuse all the original electrical connectors. They were all taken apart and new wire
run into them. The connectors were in excellent condition and give the finished
product a more genuine feel because they are from the era of the piano rather than being
modern. It did take quite a bit of doing, however, to accomplish this since the
connectors and fixtures used by Welte to do these pianos were extremely difficult to work
with. That is really a recurring theme with the Welte design: simple but
difficult to work with.
158) The pedal mechanism has been reassembled and the pedal pneumatic attached.
All worn bushings were replaced and lubricated as needed. This design of
pedal calls for a connecting rod to move up and down through the pedal pneumatic's tender
arm when the damper pedal is used manually. The down side is that the way it is made
causes this arm to slightly vibrate the pneumatic as it runs in and out of its bushing.
The pneumatic serves as a resonator and amplifies this sound. Despite using a
new bushing, polishing the rod thoroughly and coating the bushing with powdered Teflon,
this sound is still slightly present. I'm hoping that distance will cause the sound
to dissipate once it's installed in the piano.
159) The piano has been totally restrung now. With the player mechanism
reinstalled, it's time to start testing and trouble shooting.
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160) Testing the piano. The finished product isn't
allowed out my door until the piano has played for many hours without any problems.
Each aspect of the mechanism's functioning is scrutinized and tested. Everything is
worked with until it functions flawlessly and consistently.
161) The finished piano. All that remains is to let it play ten more hours or
so. This will pound in the action and confirm that everything is working
faultlessly. Once I'm convinced the piano is truly fool proof, I will be
installing a midi/computer interface so that the piano can be run from a computer as well
as by using rolls. However, before I install the midi interface, I want to make sure
that all other aspects of the piano function well separately from that. Then, if any
problems develop, I'll know where to go looking for the solutions.
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163) The power assembly for the midi interface.
164) The midi input controller for the interface.
165) The installed midi interface. It was decided to make the piano midi
capable because of the dirth of good condition Welte rolls. Also, the length of
tubing installed into the Welte system makes it play less than it is capable of when using
rolls. The midi system plays the expressions of the system even better than the
rolls often do.
166) 
166) The piano just arrived at its new home. The computer is currently playing the piano for us. We like to see the piano play for at least an hour or two without trouble before we take off and leave the piano with the owner. The very happy owner poses with his old friend brought back to life.
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