Restoration of a Leonard Player Upright for Bill
Petrick
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1) This is a photograph of the player mechanism before
work began.
2) Another photo from behind.
3) The wind motor and the tracking mechanism has been removed as well as
the cover board.
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4) Here, you see the pouch boards after they were
removed. The head has also been removed along
with all of the original lead tubing. The
original lead tubing was too rotten to reuse. This style of mechanism is designed
with only two tiers of pneumatics. In order
to fit all of the pneumatics into just two levels, everything must be miniaturized. The pneumatics are made only an inch-wide; or
perhaps a little less. To compensate for their lack
of width, the pneumatics are made longer. This keeps the square inch surface area of
the pneumatics similar to other designs. In this way, the strength of the pneumatic
is retained. The valves are kept the same size as most other player piano
valves. However the valves need to be crammed
into a tighter arrangement. In order to give
them the same amount of power, the pouches have to retain the same amount of surface area
as any other player piano would have. In
order to accomplish this, Leonard made the pouches in an oval shape. To create these pouches in an oval shape, it
becomes necessary to lay all the leather down in one strip.
It takes quite a bit of skill to create the correct amount of dish in each
pouch when you are making them from one long strip of leather.
5) Removing the lifter fingers and connecting rods from the pneumatics. In order to make of the pneumatics as narrow as
they are, and retain all of their strength, the wood they are made from had to be hard
maple. Nevertheless, the age of the
pneumatics along with their delicate construction made them very difficult to remove
safely from the rails. In addition, Leonard
was very sloppy about how they glued the pneumatics on in the first place. Because the wood of the original pneumatics was
getting old and weak from age and because they were sloppily installed originally and
because the sloppy installation had to be repeated in order to get the alignment with the
lifter fingers correct; I decided to replace all the pneumatics with brand-new wood.
6) Before the pneumatics were removed, their locations were carefully
marked on the rails. These locations will
only guide me since the original installation was so sloppy. I will only use my
reference marks as suggestions rather than as exact locations. As an added feature,
I made the new pneumatics of slightly varying widths. By doing this, I am able to
put slightly wider pneumatics in the bass than in the treble. This helps to equalize
the power of the bass with the treble. Then the pneumatic boards were warmed to
soften the glue and removed. Afterwards, I
cleaned all the old glue off of the rails and then transferred my marks back onto the new
cleaned surface.
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7) All of the other surfaces of the tiers were also
completely cleaned of old shellac. The
original shellac was looking tired and messy. Fresh
lacquer will be used to seal the outside of the rails and to create a much more attractive
cosmetic result. The inside air channels were
also carefully sealed to make them airtight.
8) Removing the valves and valve seats from the tiers. You can see, from the one valve shown on the bench
in this photo, that the design of these valves is very similar to that of the Standard
Pneumatic Action.
9) Using a homemade tool, I am resurfacing the outside valve seats which
are made of wood and set deep inside the tier.
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10) The new boards for all the pneumatics have been cut
from a block of hard maple. The sawing was
done in such a way as to make the boards quarter sawn.
This will make the pneumatics much stronger.
11) All of the pneumatic boards were paired up and then cleaned up on the belt
sander. This got all saw marks off of the
wood and ensured that all of the pneumatics’ individual boards were matched to each
other.
12) Another photo showing the removal of the valves from the tiers. Each component of the valves was kept in a
separate container. However, because of the
completeness of the restoration work, it is not necessary to keep the valves in their
original order.
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13) The pouch boards after all of the leather was removed
and the wood dressed. All the inner air
channels and pouch wells have been resealed as well.
This sealing operation was particularly difficult on the upper pouch board. This board contains passages for air to get from
the head down to the bottom tier. These air
channels had to be carefully resealed just like everything else. However, because of their narrow shape it was very
awkward to get sealant into them. To
accomplish this, I taped up all of the openings to the air channels and then poured
lacquer down into the channels until they were totally filled. Then I drained the lacquer back out and cleaned
up anything that spilled onto the wood or smeared onto undesirable places.
14) The pouch boards pictured from the other side.
These have been cleaned so carefully and so completely that they are
actually too bright in the photograph.
15) In this photo, you can see that the air holes for each pneumatic
have been drilled. The pneumatics are now
receiving their hinges.
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16) After the hinges are glued onto the pneumatics they
are carefully clamped to press the hinges tightly in place and align the boards. These clamps are allowed to sit overnight to
ensure the stability of the final product.
17) This photo shows the felt bumpers being installed inside the pneumatics and
the pneumatic cloth been glued on them. The
felt bumpers are necessary to prevent the cloth from developing a hard crease when the
pneumatics are glued back onto the tiers. If
such a hard crease is developed in the fabric, the cloth will not last as long. When covering pneumatics with rubberized cloth, it
is necessary to glue down only the first three sides at first.
18) The cloth that overhangs the sides of the pneumatics is trimmed away
before the glue can set hard. Then the
pneumatics are allowed to stand overnight for the glue to set up.
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19) The next day the hinge ends are glued into place and
trimmed. The hinges must be glued down with
the pneumatics closed in order to prevent them from binding up the pneumatic. The pneumatics are weighted down to keep them
closed overnight. This ensures that they will
not develop the condition known as being “hinge bound.”
20) Cutting out the new blotter paper gaskets for the inside valve seats.
21) The gaskets are set onto the valve plates with a tiny bit of lacquer
to help bind them to the metal. Then the
excess paper is trimmed away to make it flush with the metal.
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22) All of new leather has been cut for the valves.
23) At this point, I went ahead and glued the new pneumatics to the rails.
Normally, I like to use a paper, cheese cloth or leather gasket in gluing the pneumatics
to the rails. This makes it easier to remove the pneumatics safely in the
future. However, because of the design of this unit, there is very little gluing
surface between the pneumatics and the rails. For safety, it is imperative to glue
the pneumatics to the rails directly with no gaskets. This ensures that they will
remain adhered properly throughout the life of the pneumatics.
24) Now the valves are being rebuilt. There are a very large number of
components that go into each of the valves with this particular design. There are
two leather valve facings, four leather punchings that help seal the valves around the
stem and provide wobble to the valve body, one valve stem, four press collars that must be
removed then reconditioned so they will go back on tightly or else be replaced, four metal
discs that support the valve facings, one lifter button, one valve seat, one blotter paper
gasket, one valve guide and four screws. Per valve! Every single component of
that list has something that must be cleaned up, restored and/or replaced! In
addition, the original way that Leonard made these valves was not the best. The
valves were not set with enough wobble in the leather facings which compromises a good
seal and good pneumatic function and I discovered the hard way, later, that they had not
given the system enough valve motion either. I re-regulated the valves,
approximating the original valve motion. The result was totally unsuccessful and had
to be completely redone. Finally, Leonard placed the smooth side of the leather
towards the metal valve seats. This is done with the theory that the valve will act
more efficiently if you do that. However, other designs similar to this by better
makers occasionally chose to place the suede side toward that seat. I find this
latter method leaves the system sealing better overall.
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25) A photo of the finished valves; ready to be installed.
26) Installing the valves into the rails.
27) The new leather gaskets have now been installed over the rails. I need the
gaskets in before I install the lifter buttons to help me set the lifters appropriately.
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28) I had to run and rerun the setting of the valve travel
and the lifter disc positions several times. In most systems, it is safe to leave a
little more gap between the pouches and the valves than with this design. The
pouches are oval shaped and not as powerful at activating the valves as they are on other
designs with larger pouches. Because of this, every aspect of the system (valve
travel, facing wobble, lifter button position) must all be exactly correct within just a
few thousandths of an inch variance or the valve simply won't work right. Because it
is impossible to know if you really have it set right without installing the pouch boards
and testing the system, each time I checked and found anything at all (even if it was only
one valve) that didn't work right, it meant removing 50 screws to remove the pouch boards
to access the system and correct the problem.
29) This shows the pouch rails after new leather was installed. It is quite a
trick to releather oval pouch rails that must be done all in one strip like this.
You can't just glue the leather down and expect it to be right. You have to set the
dish in each pouch as you go. It is quite a challenge but we got it right in the
end.
30) Now the pouches have been sealed to make them totally air tight.
© Copyright 2010 {David Rodgers' Piano Rebuilding}. All Rights Reserved.