Restoration of a Leonard Player Upright for Bill Petrick
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61) Recovering one of the equalizing bellows. There
are two such bellows on this pump. They serve to help provide extra suction whenever
a large, unexpected chord is called for by the roll. They expand suddenly to all
large instant demands for suction and help the player pianist compensate for those large
chords. The way this pump is designed calls for the left equalizer to be lightly
sprung and the right equalizer to be duel sprung. It has a double strength action
compared to the left equalizer during most use. However, it has an extra coil spring
included for very high suction environments. This gives you three basic levels of
equalization for the system. This design gives us many benefits. You get
equalization no matter how loudly you are playing. Also, the heavier springing
allows you to punch the bellows for sudden accents without the equalizers absorbing all
the sudden energy you just imparted. This enables you to provide more subtle forms
of expression to the music.
62) I took this photo to give you insight into how we get this very heavy cloth to
stick to the bellows. The hide glue is actually applied quite thickly and we don't
worry if it gels before we can get the cloth in place. An iron is run over the cloth
as you hold the cloth tightly in place. The iron warms the glue and helps force it
into the fibers of the cloth; creating a strong glue joint. To help reinforce this
joint and to help the glue hold until it sets hard, cut tacks are driven into the edge of
the bellows through the cloth to "clamp" it in place while the glue sets.
These tacks also help the cloth to hold strong during hard years of heavy use.
63) All the cover plates, control boxes and slide valves have received new leather.
The slide valve leather looks black because it has been burnished with powdered
graphite after having been thoroughly sealed with Dow 111. All the wire connecting
arms have also been polished for smoother operation.
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64) All the four bellows along with the smaller pneumatic
which helps steady the wind pressure to the roll motor have been restored. Next
comes testing and gasketing of each.
65) Here, you see a leather gasket being installed onto the motor governor before it
gets screwed to the equalizer on which it mounts. The pneumatic has already been
tested and shown to be totally air tight before the gasket was applied. The painted
area under the leather is scraped away before gluing down the leather gasket to ensure a
strong joint between the pneumatic and the gasket. The original design used paper
gaskets which were set into place with shellac on both sides of the gasket. This did
provide an air tight seal but it prevented you from being able to readily take the pump
apart for servicing. This method of gasketing will enable the pump to be just about
as air tight while also being easy to take apart later. Originally, all the
components were essentially glued together.
66) Testing another of the bellows for air tightness before it gets its gasket.
67) 
68) 
69) 
67) All the parts have been given their gaskets and are
ready for reassembly.
68) Cleaning up the pedals which were heavily rusted.
69) Testing the pump after reassembly. I found, after I put the pump back
together, that Leonard didn't provide heavy enough springs for the pumping bellows.
The original cloth that was used was a little lighter than what I have used (which also
means it didn't last as well or work as briskly as what I just installed will... In
order to compensate for the tighter hinging job and the stiffer bellows cloth and to
correct for a poorly constructed return spring design, I had to do some testing with
alternate springs until I found a set I was happy with. You can see the original
springs on the floor.
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70) The back of the bellows are shown here with the new
return springs which will provide the proper action to the bellows which the original
springs were too weak to provide.
71) The control boxes have been installed and the cover plates are ready to be put
into place thus sealing the bellows up for use. This photo helps you see how nicely
the pedals cleaned up.
72) One last task was to drill a hole into a place which was designated originally
for the nipple that provided suction to the pedal pneumatic. This piano didn't
originally receive such a pneumatic but one is being fitted during the restoration.
So a nipple had to be provided. The inner air chambers of the trunk were drilled for
this feature but the final hole and nipple fitting had not been installed. Now they
are. This drilling was done while the cover plate was still off so that any dust or
wood chips could be suctioned out so that they didn't end up interfering with the function
of the stack cut out valve. This nipple is placed here because the stack cut out
valve will block suction to both the stack and the pedal pneumatic during rewind in this
way. After all this was finished, the pump was tested for air tightness. It
passed very well. Clearly, the only places where air is getting into the system is
what little bit can seep through leather gaskets and flap valves as well as that which
seeps through the felt bushings that the control valves ride in. These are sources
of minor leakage which cannot be avoided in any player piano system and do not effect the
function of the mechanism. I could make the pump every so slightly tighter by
setting the leather gaskets into place after soaking them with shellac. However,
this would defeat the purpose of keeping the pump easy to service later since the shellac
would glue the components together permanently.
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75) 
73) The damper pedal mechanism which I had in stock from an
orphaned system. This will be rebuilt and installed into this piano.
74) The mechanism torn apart. The photo shows that this pneumatic is
controlled by three valves. One small primary signals two large secondary valves.
This design allows a rather large pneumatic to operate very quickly which is just
what we want.
75) The individual components have been restored. All valves have been
releathered and all air channels resealed. All pouches are new and freshly sealed
and all gaskets are replaced. The pneumatic itself was rehinged and resealed inside
and out. This mechanism (in its original installation) was the only access that the
roll or the player pianist had to the damper system. Because of this, the mechanism
had two signal nipples. One came from the roll and the other came from a button in
front of the keys where the player pianist could actuate the valves. Because this
piano has a mechanical linkage that does this job for the player pianist, the mechanism is
only needed to operate the dampers at the command of the roll. I eliminated the
second signal nipple for this reason since it was superfluous and, therefore, only served
as a potential source of future leakages.
76) 
77) 
78) 
76) The newly rebuilt pedal pneumatic has been installed
into the upper section of the piano. Due to the location of the hammer lift rail
connecting rod that leads to the soft pedal below, it was not possible to gain access to
the damper lift rod below the keyboard. A connecting arm system will have to be
constructed to give the pneumatic access to the pedal lift rod from above instead.
Actually, the hammer lift rail connecting rod was totally missing and a new one will have
to be made... This photo also shows the mandolin rail replacement has been
installed. The actual mandolin strip has not been made yet but the rail (which I
stole from another piano which I will not be trying to salvage) has been fitted into the
piano to mate with the original mounts and connecting linkages which were still existent
in the piano. Someone had simply removed the rail itself. Probably some piano
tuner who decided the rail was too much bother to put back after he/she tuned the piano.
Laziness and ignorance of piano technicians are the two biggest sources of damage
done to player pianos...
77) All the leather nuts to the connecting and control arms below the keybed have
been replaced. This is an important aspect of the restoration that most amateur and
low end rebuilders often skip. I also had to go through every screw in these
assemblies and fix stripped wood on almost every one of them to ensure proper and
maintenance free operation. I had to go through a similar operation for the piano's
back castors. The bottom wood of the piano has been subjected to moisture.
Probably it was either in a garage or a basement for many years. This has caused bad
damage to be incurred to the wood at the bottom of the piano. Since the only way to
fix this properly involves a total rebuild of the piano, I had to find other ways to make
the repairs. I found that using a high end epoxy that I keep in stock was effective
in rebuilding the damaged wood and resetting the castors. If, over time, this repair
doesn't hold, and the customer still does not want a total rebuild, then felted glide
blocks will have to be installed in place of the castors until such time as a proper
rebuild is possible. While I had the piano on its back, making these repairs, I blew
out and vacuumed up years of dirt and grime. Happily, while doing so, I unearthed
the original tempo indicator which we thought was forever lost. In fact, I had gone
to the trouble of finding a substitute and installing it already. Since the original
has been found, I will take the trouble to reinstall it.
78) One other thing I did with the piano while it was on its back was to
"dope" the pin block. This means that I treated the block with glycerin to
tighten the tuning pins. This will make the piano easier to tune and will help to
keep it in tune better. The instrument is low in pitch but I chose not to raise the
pitch back to concert A440 because the back frame of the piano has had the glue fail at
the bottom as described above. I don't trust the back frame with the extra tension
so I did not raise it. The piano will have to be tuned once it is in the owner's
home but I'm recommending that he not let the tuner raise the pitch. In this photo,
you can see that I am removing the damper felts. I knew the old felt was too hard
and dirty to damp well any more so replacement was in the plan from the beginning.
While I had the dampers in front of me, I also took the time to strengthen the damper
springs to create a better damping of the piano. In addition, while I had the action
on the bench, it became apparent that much of the felt has lost its glue joint and was
falling off. I had to replace a lot of felt in this action because of this.
Most of the reglued and/or replaced felt was deep inside the action where it is difficult
to see it. However, if these felts don't work perfectly and stay well glued, they
can cause all sorts of malfunctions in the action.
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79) When I originally planned the restoration of the action,
I intended to keep the original key bushings. The keys were not flopping around
which would indicate that the bushings were still tight enough to do their work; which
they were. I later learned better. As I removed the keys to clean under them,
the bushings started falling out on the floor. The only thing that was holding them,
seemingly, so well in place was the pressure of the key pins. Once the keys were
out, the bushings fell out. They could not simply be glued back into place, new
bushings had to be installed. In this photo, the old bushings have all been removed
and I am ready to start the job of gluing in new ones.
80) The first rail has its new bushings glued into place.
81) Starting on the balance rail, I discovered why it was that the bushings
"seemed" to be so tight. Some lazy technician had used an "eleven
maker" on the keys. This is a tool that damages the wood and in so doing,
presses two parallel lines into the wood on either side of the bushing; making an
"eleven." This has the effect of tightening the bushing's hold on the key
pins. It also damages the wood and masks worn out key bushings from an initial
inspection. This batch of "elevens" had been so neatly concealed the you
didn't really see them until the bushings were out. This was why we didn't realize
what terrible shape the keys were in when we first inspected it.
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82) The keys are now rebushed.
83) After removing the keys, I found that all the key felt underneath was either
moth eaten or so dirty it was hard. I had to replace all of the felt under the keys.
Since this was necessary, there will be a time during which the new felt is still
compressing. The key levels and fine action regulations will drift for a year or so
as the felt compresses. Later, another fine tuning of the key level and a touch up
action regulation will put a more permanent finish to the adjustments made with these
felts.
84) The hammers have been reshaped and the action reconditioned. Now the new
damper felts are being glued into place using the strings themselves as alignment guides
and clamps for the felt. As with everything else in this piano, nothing here was
standard. The thickness of the original damper felts was so different from standard
that I had to custom cut damper felts for this action which quadrupled the amount of time
needed for the damper felt installation project.
85) 
86) 
87) 
85) Getting the new damper pedal pneumatic set up with a
connecting linkage which will fix it to the damper system in the action.
86) The new damper pedal pneumatic is installed. This is a great pneumatic
design which will work very well. However, some QRS rolls are cut with very brief,
small damper signals which will not read on this piano. Due to the design and
condition of the damper tray and lift rod, it will be necessary for the rolls to have a
well cut and lengthy damper signal for the mechanism to read in the music. Up beat
music with little damping signal will not effect play much. More lyrical, and more
heavily sustained music will play much nicer with this in place than they did when the
piano had no such mechanism.
87) I made the new soft pedal lift rod from metal with wood ends. This will
keep it from bending or breaking over time which, I suspect, is what lost us the original
rod in the first place.
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90) 
88) The upper action of the player mechanism is set in place
and the "head" is folded back to gain access to the lifter fingers. Each
finger is pain-stakingly adjusted to the action to enable it to activate the note with
next to no lost motion. This is a very vital step if you want the finished product
to play with good repetition and a very quiet pianissimo. When finished, this piano
played so softly (if desired) that it was a pleasure.
89) The finished upper mechanism in place but without its cover board screwed back
on yet.
90) The bellows are back in place, hooked up and adjusted. After playing the
piano for a while, I realized one of my bellows springs was taping the bass strings on a
deep pump stroke. After pulling the bellows out again and checking, I discovered
that my new springs were too long to clear the plate. However, the springs had
worked their magic. The extra tension of the springs had pressed the fresh bellows
cloth home and freed everything up. I was able to put the original springs back on
the bellows and it worked quite well.
91) 
91) The cover boards of the cabinet had to have some work done to them. The doors above and below were either broken or never made right. Corrections to both got them working properly again. It is too bad we couldn't afford to do a better job of rebuilding the piano itself. The player mechanism came out working quite well with only a couple minor issues associated with the design of the Leonard mechanism. First, the wind motor governor is very primitive and, although I got it adjusted perfectly, does not work as well as more sophisticated designs. On long play rolls, the governor looses its ability to keep the tempo right and during very loud play, the governor can close too far and cause the motor to skip or even stop. This is a design flaw that cannot be corrected any further. It shouldn't cause a noticeable problem to the average user. The other inconvenience is the fact that the tracking mechanism which keeps the roll properly centered is not designed with sufficient air flow. This means that if you play very fast music too softly or use an old roll that doesn't have crisp edges, the tracker can sometimes fall behind and cause the roll to get off center. This can cause the music to change keys or to become weak. During average volume playing sessions at average tempos with good rolls, this tracker should work perfectly all the time. Only during very soft, fast play on worn rolls does it have problems. My only other complaint about this design is that there is too much reservoir. The mechanism is so tight and the bellow's reservoirs are so huge that you can pump the music up to forte, get up and walk away from the piano and it will still be playing by the time you get across the room! This is a mixed blessing. It also means that when you try to jab the pedals for a quick accent, the reservoirs absorb a lot of that energy and store it for future use. This prevents the full impact of your efforts from reaching the piano's action. Some better designs have special valves inside to let accents like this bypass the reservoirs and reach the action but this design doesn't have that feature.
Essentially, the Leonard design is a clone of the Standard Pneumatic Action. The differences in how it is carried out are only in shape, not function. The problems are that the Leonard company didn't carry out the work with the same attention to detail and quality and they left out certain minor niceties which vastly improve the player's usefulness that Standard kept in their designs. This makes the Leonard a very tight and nice working design but hard to rebuild and not quite as deluxe as Autopianos and Standards which contain the Standard Pneumatic Action Company's products.
Other than those couple minor issues, the mechanism is extremely tight and will perform marvelously for decades. As to the piano, the condition of the finish is poor and the "harp" desperately needs a rebuild. However, they do function and the customer wished to keep them as is. The dynamic range of the piano is very limited because of the fact we kept the original sound board and strings/hammers. It plays very soft in a beautiful fashion but it doesn't have much by way of forte or fortissimo volume levels. All in all, it lacks luster and liveliness in the tone. A new sound board and so forth would have left us with a remarkable sounding instrument. Even now...she ain't bad!