Rodgers' Piano Restorations
The Best Piano Rebuilding in the Business
9091 Ox Bow Rd.   North East, PA 16428
Because  I have a great deal of work to do, I am forced to concentrate my efforts on all matters which concern the tasks before me.   Sadly, the telephone has become a constant source of interruptions to the work schedule which consist largely of people seeking free information and telemarketers.   I lose between one and two hours each day to these people when I answer the phone.   Because of this, I have been forced to shut off phone communication so that I can better serve my customers.  In addition, the email spammers have become so thick that I am getting thousands of spams per day.  They are so thick that even spam busting software cannot stop them.  The spam has flooded my email so badly that I can no longer gain access to my own email.  Even after trying a change to the email address, the spammers found us again in a very short time.  Each time I try to access my email I simply get "timed out" because of all the junk that is in the folder.   Although I would love to be able to communicate via email, I have been totally blocked from that venue by these parasites.  If you wish to communicate with me, the best method at this time is to send a letter to the address listed above.  I know this seems slow compared to other rebuilders, but it will be well worth the effort since the quality available here is of the highest order.

Second, we learn about the construction of the bellows.

The bellows is the part of a player piano that creates the suction that drives the rest of the mechanism.

Picture #4

Picture #4 shows the purpose of the "flap valves."   The bellows usually consist of two large pumping pneumatics that are opened and closed as you pump the piano.  In the case of reproducing pianos and orchestrians the pumping pneumatics are operated by an electric motor and a crank shaft.  In these types of pianos, there are usually four pumping pneumatics.  The purpose of the bellows is to evacuate air from the system.  To do this the air must be able to flow through the pumping pneumatics in one direction only.  You can see from the picture above how this is accomplished with the use of flap valves.

Picture #5

Picture #5 shows a pumping pneumatic along with another pneumatic called the "Reservoir."  The purpose of the reservoir is to maintain a steady level of vacuum to the system.  During the pumping of the bellows small variations in vacuum pressure are created as the pumping pneumatics change directions.  You can see that as the pumping pneumatic (right) opens, it sucks air out of the system including out of the reservoir.  This causes the reservoir to collapse.

Picture #6

As you can see in Picture #6, the reservoir is spring loaded.   As the pumping pneumatic (right) is closing and not able to be evacuating air from the system, the Reservoir opens by the action of its spring.  This temporarily maintains the flow of air from the system until the bellows can resume pumping.   Of course, there is more than one pumping pneumatic so the reservoir is only called upon to take up air during gaps in the pumping operation.  The reservoir also helps to even out the suction level when a large amount of air is called for during play.  (Like when a large number of notes are suddenly activated all at once.)

Next the wind motor: