Restoration of a Bush & Lane/Welte for Kim Davis
100) 
101) 
102) 
100) The automatic shut off device which turns the electrical switch off at the end
of the rewinding of a roll, after it was restored. To see a before picture, look at
the shots of the drawer itself. It is located at the back of the right side of the
drawer next to the play/rewind.
101) Normally, I don't take the transmissions out of these spool boxes.
However, this piano had seen so many decades of nonuse that the transmission was very
corroded and did not want to operate properly. Just hitting it with some lubricant
or penetrating oil wasn't going to cut it. So, I pulled the transmission in order to
take it apart and polish it and lubricate it. Some brands of players used pot metal
for their transmissions, making this task pointless. However, this transmission is
brass and will polish up beautifully.
102) The transmission is now totally apart and the various components have been
polished and lacquered (where appropriate) to prevent future corrosion.
103) 
104) 
105) 
103) The restored transmission.
104) Now it is time to put the drawer back together. The inside and outside
have all been repainted and every component cleaned and polished. Now the
transmission is back in place.
105) The outer surfaces of the side pieces originally matched the finish of the
piano. I thoroughly stripped and sanded these areas and left them bare. I will
color match them and finish them when the rest of the piano has been done. This will
ensure that I get a good color match to the rest of the piano.
106) 
107) 
108) 
106) A close up showing the polished tracker bar and the
selector switches which have all been disassembled and polished. The switches were
then tested to make sure they were still air tight, free moving and operating properly
before they were put back into the drawer.
107) A shot of the same thing from the other side. This shows just how complex
the selector switches are.
108) Replacing the rubber tubing.
109) 
110) 
111) 
109) The main body of the drawer is now back together.
You can see that it has all been repainted carefully.
110) All the pneumatic components are now back in place in the drawer.
111) Starting to place the tubing into the drawer with the addition of the tubing to
the tracking mechanism.
112) 
113) 
114) 
112) Running the rest of the tubing under the drawer from
one device to the other.
113) Covering the bottom of the drawer with the freshly painted cover boards.
114) The finished drawer.
115) 
116) 
117) 
115) The finished drawer from the back.
116) The finished drawer from the front with the rest of the cover boards in place.
117) The next step was to test the drawer. This is when problems arose.
I discovered that the play/rewind and the automatic shut off were not set up so that they
would function properly. Upon very careful comparison to the tubing charts, I
discovered an important flaw in the design. In order to make the drawer replay the
roll at the correct time and to make it shut down at the correct time an additional valve
was needed. I don't know why this wasn't included from the factory but I doubt that
this drawer ever worked properly without this additional valve being added. The
arrow in the photo points to the valve. I salvaged this valve from another player
mechanism that was built by Lester. It is of the same basic design as everything
else in the Welte so that it look correct in this system. The function of the valve
is to signal the replay pneumatic and the shut off pneumatic (depending on whether you
have replay selected or not) when the roll has finished rewinding. As the system was
originally built, the replay pneumatic or the shut off pneumatic would be constantly
signaled while the roll was playing but would fail to signal when the roll was done
replaying. This valve corrects the flaw.
118) 
119) 
120) 
118) Running a roll over the system repeatedly to ensure
that the drawer now operates correctly.
119) The player mechanism is now done and it is time to start in on the rest of the
piano. Here, you see the dampers to this piano as well as the Fischer Ampico I'm
currently working on before they were cleaned up and restored.
120) The damper guide rails before they were restored.
121) 
122) 
123) 
121) Cleaning off the old felt and glue as well as polishing
the damper wires.
122) Rebushing the damper guide rails. Because of the type of glue used by
Bush and Lane, it was impossible to pop the old bushings out in the usual way.
Therefore, I had to drill them out and enlarge the holes in order to get all the old glue
and felt out. This meant that it was necessary to rebush the rails in the same way
that Steinway does theirs. They use two layers of felt in bushing their damper guide
rails. You can see that the first layer is being glued into place in this
photo. A second layer, using smaller cauls will be added after the hide glue
dries. Because I used hide glue this time, these bushings will be able to be popped
out in the usual way the next time this rail needs to be rebushed.
123) Replacing the key bushings. The keytops will also have
to be replaced on this piano. The original ivory was mostly gone when the customer
acquired the piano.
124) 
125)
126) 
124) The veneer on the cheeks of this piano was not glued
down well any more and was also badly damaged in the areas that were glued down well.
Therefore, new veneer is being glued into place in this photo.
125) The music desk had an area of veneer which was loose as well.
126) The old, loose veneer has been cut cleanly away and a new piece of mahogany
glued into place and color matched.
127) 
128)
129) 
127) Drilling out the tuning pin and screw holes on the new
pin block. Due to a software glitch the photos taken during the construction and
fitting of this pin block were lost.
128) My digital camera died so the photos taken of the first parts of making
the new bass bridge and of removing the sound board were lost. This photo shows the
ledge on which the sound board is glued before it was cleaned up but after the board was
indexed and taken out. The ledge (known as a rastin) is being soaked with cloths
containing a vinegar solution which will melt the old hide glue and make it possible to
thoroughly clean the wood joint.
129) The rastin is restored and ready for a new sound board to be installed.
130) 
131) 
132) 
130) Restoration of the treble bridge. Other photos of
this process were also lost.
131) The pieces of the old bass bridge were taken apart (top) and used to duplicate
the bridge with new wood (bottom.) The cap of the bridge has already been treated
with a dark grey lubricant which will help the strings to slide over it readily during
tuning. The core of the bass bridge was made of vertically laminated maple which had
to be glued up in a specially made jig that was created from a template taken from the
original bridge. This made it possible to create the shape of the bridge exactly.
Vertically laminated bridges are considered the best because they transmit
vibration better along their length and because they are more stable.
132) Gluing the cap to the bridge core.
133) 
134) 
135) 
133) A heavy paper pattern was taken from the original
bridge to show the bridge pin locations. The original design had no notches in it.
This meant that each bass string was a different length from every other bass
string. This is often done even in fine pianos. However, it is better to pair
strings of the same note in such a way that each string is the same length as its partner.
Therefore, I am only using the paper pattern as a guide and am marking the bridge
for drilling using a plexiglass jig which will cause the strings to be the same lengths
for strings which are the same note. This should increase power as well as making
the bridge look more classy and the overall effect of the piano look more high quality.
134) Gluing the bridge cap/core to the two part apron which has already been
partially assembled.
135) The shanks and flanges are to be replaced. Once the old parts were
removed (the starting photo was lost to the old camera failure) the old sand paper bed
which helped keep the parts stable was removed. A new layer of coarse sand paper was
installed so that the new parts will have the best bed to sit upon.
136) 
137) 
138) 
136) The new shanks and flanges have been installed and
spaced in a preliminary way. Now the parts are traveled using a jig to ensure that
they all swing parallel to each other.
137) Getting ready to replace the felt let off buttons.
138) The new let off felts are glued in place.
139) 
140) 
141) 
139) The traveling of the shanks and flanges is now under
way.
140) A glaze is being made here to help me repair a color problem on the lid.
Near the end of the preparation for refinishing phase, I discovered that the lid had a
large area of veneer which had come unglued. After regluing this damaged area, I had
to make a glaze to go over the edges and some of the surface to blend in any color
problems that the damage and subsequent repair created. This glaze is done with
white shellac with a small amount of analine dye inside it to match the stain which was
used. This glaze was padded onto the surface lightly and then bits of plain white
shellac were blended in with it to make the edges of the repair blend into the rest of the
surface.
141) The lid is in process of being glazed and the color problems blended away.
142) 
143)
144) 
142) The lid as well as most of the other boards have been
sprayed with about 5 mils of lacquer. This is now sanded carefully to remove all
imperfections left by the spray gun as well as the remaining imperfections in the wood.
It would be possible to skip this sanding step in the lacquer if I were to do more
aggressive white wood sanding. I don't agree with those who prefer to aggressively
sand the veneer of a piano after stripping and before filling. Heavy sanding will
leave a more smooth and flaw free surface. However, it removes far too much of the
veneer. There is only a thin layer of veneer and if we were to heavily sand it every
time we refinished the piano, we would only be able to refinish it about twice before the
veneer was ruined. On some brands of piano, it is financially feasible to reveneer
the case. However, it would ruin the value and the viability of future rebuilding on
brands of lesser acclaim if we ruined the veneer in this way.
143) First, let me apologize for the quality of the next few photos. A mistake
in saving caused the file quality to be lower than usual. The images will,
therefore, seem a bit less clear. In this photo, the skin of the sound board is
being fitted into the rim of the piano. The wood has been dried in my drying box
until it has shrunk the correct amount. This will allow the board to become tense
inside the rim of the piano once the moisture level in the wood comes back up again after
the gluing up is finished. In the mean time, the shop is kept as dry as possible to
keep the board from growing until it is time. Because of the weather conditions at
the time this was done, it meant that I had to work in a shop which was blistering hot
with the thermostat set at close to 80 degrees.
144) The ribs of the piano have been cut to length, the tops have been physically
crowned to a 60 foot radius and the profiles have been carefully duplicated from the
original. This photo shows how the treble bridge is placed over the ribs in its
exact location. This location is transfered to the ribs so that the shaping of the
rib tops can be done in such a way as to ensure that the highest place on each rib is
directly under the treble bridge. This enhances sustain, power and longevity in the
board.
145) 
146) 
147) 
145) Once the skin of the board has been well fitted into
the rim, it is indexed so that the original orientation of the bridges and the ribs is
transferred onto the new board. Then the index holes which were drilled into the old
board before removal are lined up with the marks on the new board and then all other
important marks are transferred. These marks include the indexes on the bridges and
the holes for the nose bolts. Now the skin of the board is marked for
diaphramization. A pencil line is made around the perimeter of the board to guide me
and kerf marks are cut into the wood with a Japanese back saw. These kerf marks are
made to a depth of 1/3 the thickness of the board. This tapers off to nothing near
the high treble end of the board. After these marks are made, the wood is sanded
until the marks are obliterated. This gives me an even thinning of the board which
will make the entire assembly more flexible once glued into the piano.
146) Now the board has gone back into the drying box over night and then brought out
the next day and glued up. The ribs are being glued to the board in this photo.
In the past, I have always used hot hide glue for this task. On this project,
I am trying a new acoustic glue made by Andre Bolduc which dries more clearly than hide
glue and just as hard. It is an excellent glue to use because it will transmit
vibrations well and, yet, is totally reversible in the future. This means that this
new board will be able to be replaced in exactly the same manner in the future. This
new acoustic glue will come back out of the wood just like hide glue does. This
acoustic glue has the added benefit of a longer open period and a faster setting up
period. You have a bit more time to work than with hide glue and yet you only have
to leave it in the clamps for two to three hours before it is set sufficiently to be
removed. Once the ribs were glued up, the board was removed from the press and the
treble and bass bridges were laid in. Then the board was put back into place and the
press assembled over it. Once the press was ready, a dry fit of the bridges was made
and everything was readied. Then the treble bridge was glued up and clamped into
place with all clamping cauls in position. Then, the bass bridge was glued up as
well.
147) After the board was fully assembled, the profile of the ribs was completed to
match the original with a planer and sanding. Any glue squeeze out that was
troublesome was removed with a sharp chisel.
148) 
149) 
150) 
148) Now it is time for another new technique. The
board was set into the piano and the glue joint marked with a pencil. Then the area
of the board which was to receive glue was taped off. Next I used the West System
Epoxy to coat the board on both sides. The epoxy is spread over the surface and then
scraped off. The epoxy is burnished into the wood and the excess removed with clean
cotton rags. This was done to the top and the bottom of the board. There are
many reasons for doing this. Kiln dried spruce is never as dense or
"brittle" as air dried spruce. Especially spruce which has been air dried
for many decades. The more brittle character of air dried spruce makes it a better
conductor of vibrations. I have discovered that a coating of this epoxy will
actually take the kiln dried spruce and move it towards the character of air dried.
The panel becomes a better conductor of vibration. It also is now able to sustain
vibrations for a longer period. The idea is that when the string sets the board in
motion, the board has enough power of sustain that it reactivates the string which, in
turn, reactivates the sound board. The two stimulate each other effectively
increasing sustain. The other thing this should do for us is to enable the sound
board to be more efficient at moving the air especially at the highest frequencies.
This will effectively enrich the tone and achieve a better balance throughout the various
registers of the instrument. After the epoxy had cured, it was lightly sanded and
the bottom surface of the board was lacquered with Mohawk's classic instrument
lacquer. This lacquer is specially made for use on guitars and violins. It
has the hardness needed to move air and the flexibility needed to enhance
vibrations. The top side of the board will be finished later. Once the
moisture content of the wood has risen, the top surface of the board usually develops some
slight raising of grain and other irregularities. These are allowed to develop and
then sanded off. Once done, the top side of the board is lacquered.
149) Gluing the completed sound board into the piano. The clamping cauls for
this are in two layers. The lower layer is made of a plywood strip which sits
directly over the sound board where it glues to the rastin. The second layer is of
cauls which are specially designed to fit closely to each other all around the rim and
with a 1 1/2 degree bevel at their bases to ensure that the sound board is well glued into
the rastin which is also beveled at this angle.
150) The new sound board is installed and the bridges are prefinished.
Therefore, the bridges are being taped off along with the keybed so that they won't get
any lacquer on them. This is the last bit of the piano that needs to get finish put
on it.
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