Restoration of a Fischer Ampico for the Hicks family
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43) Before (left) and after (right) pictures of the soft
pedal pneumatic.
44) A rear shot of the pneumatic stack before removal.
45) A front view of the pneumatic stack before removal. You can see that much
of the signal tubing had been replaced recently but the lengths weren't quite long enough
and so the elbows pulled out. It is easier to just replace the tubing than to try to
reuse the fairly new tubing that is there so all of it will get replaced during this
rebuild.
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46) The primary valve chest (which is mounted underneath the
pneumatic stack) before rebuilding began.
47) The primary valve chest after it had been cracked open. Normally, once a
corner had been started the cork gaskets should have popped open easily. I suspect
that someone has had this apart before and tried to get it to seal better by coating the
gasket with shellac before putting it back together. The result was that the entire
chest had to be driven apart with a thin wide bladed putty knife. Since I'm not a
particularly big fan of cork gaskets anywhere that I can't subject them to high tensioned
compression joints, I chose to regasket this chest in the finest double suede leather.
This ensure that it will be exceedingly air tight without the need of over
tightening the screws and the chest will come apart easily the next time it is taken
apart.
48) This pictures shows the features of one of the primary chest's boards being
chalked and the chalk outlines being transferred to a piece of leather so the leather can
be cut precisely to match the board.
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49) The old rotten pouches have been removed from the pouch
board of the primary chest, the valve wells given a fresh coat of shellac and the new
pouches are now being installed.
50) The valves have been punched out of the valve board on the primary chest and now
the old leather is being removed from them and new leather glued on. As the leather
is glued to the outside valve head and the other facing is slid over the valve stem onto
the inside head, the valves are then immediately placed into the valve board and set for
the proper gap. Although I use a piece of glass to press the valve facing onto the
outside valve head, I like the idea of being able to press the valve head down onto the
area of wood in which it will live after being assembled to the other half of its body
while the glue is still slightly soft. The result is a chest that is absolutely,
perfectly air tight.
51) The three boards of the primary valve chest restored and ready for reassembling.
The only thing that doesn't show in this picture is the stack divider which hadn't
been installed yet. This is a piece of metal that gets sealed onto the pouch board
and then covered with a layer of gasket to match into the valve board. This divides
the primary valve chest into two chambers (treble and bass) as is each tier of the
pneumatic stack. This divider must be absolutely air tight so that the varying
expression levels on the separate halves of the stack won't bleed into each other.
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52) The main body of the pneumatic stack out of the piano
before restoration began.
53) A picture before restoration begins on the stack from the other side with the
dust cover held up to reveal the secondary unit valve blocks. The dust covers are
glued into place and must be removed during the restoration process and then glued back
on.
54) The stack on the bench just prior to the commencement of restoration.
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55) The secondary valves have all been removed from the
stack. The outside metal valve seats are heated on an iron and pulled out of their
burnt shellac beds and the valves themselves removed first. This pictures shows the
valves being stripped of their old leather. The leather is pealed or scraped off as
needed. The inside leathers pealed off because they were still in fairly solid shape
due to being protected from the outside air but the outside leathers were totally rotten
due to being exposed to the outside air at all times. The outside leathers had to be
scraped off. Then the small green felt dots are popped off the flat and round wooden
valve heads and the heads sanded on a piece of glass to remove all traces of leather and
glue and to ensure that they are absolutely flat. Then the green felt dots are glued
back into place on the valve heads. The valve stems are tacked to the inside valve
leathers so that (with this being the only connection between the valve head and the stem)
the valves have just the right amount of wobble to seat safely on both seats. The
stems are left attached to the inside leathers temporarily because the makes it easier to
keep track of where the tiny tacks are. If they were removed at this stage, I'd
probably loose some of them.
56) Here, the valves are receiving new leather inside and out. The outsides
are pressed into the glue with a piece of glass. For the insides, a valve body is
pressed into service. The inside leather is set into the glue after having been
tacked to its valve stem and then the valve is dropped onto an inside valve seat and
pressed home. This ensures that the leather is nicely flat.
57) Now the gutted valve bodies must be split apart in order to gain access to the
pouches. To do this, the old burnt orange shellac must be sanded off to expose the
glue joints. The greatest care must be taken in the sanding and splitting apart of
these valve blocks. The structures inside are extremely delicate and in some areas
quite thin. It is absolutely critical that you don't remove any wood, only shellac
when sanding. Then you must make certain that the glue joint is separated perfectly
or else the pouch board or valve board will break. If they do break, it is often
possible to repair them but it is best to take great care in splitting them apart so that
they don't break.
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58) The valve bodies being rebuilt in an assembly line.
At each stage something needs to dry so while one batch is drying another batch can
be worked on to make most efficient use of time.
59) Here, you see some of the valve bodies with their new totally air tight pouches
being glued back together. It is critical not to get too much glue on the joint or
the squeeze out will get on the pouch and render them useless whereas not enough glue will
lead to the joint coming apart of leaking. Four clamps per valve block are used to
get the joints as tight as possible.
60) Here, some blocks that have been reglued, set up hard and are ready are getting
their newly leathered valves back. The outside metal seats were soaked in alcohol
until they came completely clean and then they got a light cleaning with steal wood to
ensure no residue or debris were on their mating surfaces. The valves are placed in
the blocks and the seats pressed in after them. The, using a special gauge, the
valve travel is set and then the seat locked into place and sealed with burnt shellac.
The entire outside surface of the valve receives a fresh layer of burnt orange
shellac just like the factory used originally except for the gasket side that seats
against the stack. That side gets a new cork gasket glued to it. I don't mind
the cork in this location because the mounting design allows for reliable tight
compression to the gaskets.
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61) Another picture from #60 above.
62) The completed valves with their new gaskets also attached. They have each
been tested and are proven to be in perfect working order at this stage. Each
component is tested as it is rebuilt but before it is attached to the next component.
In this way, I know everything is working before I put it back together. Then
if a problem crops up, I know it is a result of the last thing I did. Which is
usually (during reassembling) some gasket that doesn't seal properly in the case of the
secondary valves. In this case, the valves all worked flawlessly once they were
attached to the stack the first time.
63) The rest of the stack is being disassembled. Here, the lifter fingers have
their screws removed and then are snapped off of the pneumatics. These fingers are
glued onto the pneumatics and don't come off easily.
64) 
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64) The pneumatics have a layer of cheese cloth between them
and the trunk so removal is fairly easy. They are still clinging very well so they
must be driven off with a thin wide bladed putty knife. In some cases, the
pneumatics will snap off just by pulling on them if the glue has started to die but these
were still on there quite well. A few, even cracked during removal and are sitting
in clamps after being reglued as you can see in this picture.
65) The pneumatics are off and you see one of the three trunks has been dressed and
is ready for the restored pneumatics.
66) The pneumatics after the old cloth was removed and the hinges restored.
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