Restoration of a Leonard Player Upright for Bill Petrick
31) 
32) 
33) 
31) Installing the brass nipples back into the rails.
In the Standard Pneumatic Action which this action was modeled after, all the pouches are
on one board. In this system, the pouches are divided between two rails. This
makes it necessary to transfer the signal for the lower rail through the upper rail (where
the bleeds for each line live) and down to the lower. The tight clearances make it
very difficult to actually install the short tubing lengths between these rails.
32) The felt on the lifter fingers was in bad shape. It was very dirty and the
glue holding it down was all letting go. The felt could have been cleaned and reused
but the glue joints were so bad that the felt had to come off to correct the glue.
Rather than gluing the old felt back on, I decided to just replace it outright.
33) The old felt has been removed.
34) 
35) 
36) 
34) The lifter fingers with the new felt installed.
35) The upper rail of pneumatics were the only ones originally reinforced with a
wood strip. The purpose of the strip is to provide a felted bumper rail for the
lifter fingers to rest on. The old felt was in really bad shape so I'm replacing it
here.
36) The restored rest rail in now screwed to the pneumatics. Each pneumatic,
being new, had to be predrilled for the screws to prevent cracking the wood.
37) 
38) 
39) 
37) The two halves of the stack are resting together to get
a look at alignments. I must set the top rail into the piano and adjust it to the
action's spacing before I predrill the pneumatics for the screws which will hold the
lifter fingers to them.
38) The top rail is in the piano; held in by its metal end brackets. The
action is then used as a guide to adjust the lifter fingers to the exact, correct
positions.
39) Now the short lifters are set to their pneumatics and holes predrilled for the
screws. The metal flanges are set to the wood with screws and burnt shellac to
secure them. Then the other rail is screwed into place and the second tier of lifter
fingers are installed in the same manner.
40) 
41) 
42) 
40) Getting the longer lifter fingers ready to install.
41) The lifter fingers all attached.
42) The pouch boards are installed and the signal tubes are blocked off to test the
stack. This is where I discovered that I had a great seal job but poor valve
function. It took an additional two days of labor to do all the adjusting until the
stack worked correctly.
43) 
44) 
45) 
43) Although it took much longer than expected to regulate the valves on the stack,
when it was done, I had a system that worked as good or better than anything I've ever
seen. I was amazed at how well this system worked once you finally perfected each
adjustment.
44) Another view of the stack showing how a pouch rail was being folded back to
access a malfunctioning valve during the long regulation process.
45) The head after the tracker and wind motor were removed but before it was
restored.
46) 
47) 
48) 
46) The original design had lead tubing run from the tracker
bar to the pouch boards. The lead was shot and had to be replaced with neoprene.
The job of getting the lead off of the tracker bar nipples is a difficult one which
takes hours of careful cutting.
47) The tracker bar nipples after the lead was removed.
48) This mechanism guides the roll to ensure that the holes on the role always align
properly with those of the tracker bar. This photo was taken before work began.
49) 
50) 
51) 
49) The tracking mechanism taken apart.
50) The finished, restored, tracking mechanism. When done, it was perfectly
balanced and working very well. These mechanisms are very delicate and must be
absolutely perfect in every respect for them to function correctly.
51) The wind motor before work began on it.
52) 
53) 
54) 
52) This is a photo of the wind motor after it was taken
completely apart and much of the restoration work completed prior to reassembly.
53) Gluing and clamping the recovered and thoroughly sealed and tested pneumatics
back onto the trunk. After I finished putting this motor back together, my final
tests showed it to be leaking more air than I care to permit. Careful re-examination
of the motor revealed that the fact the trunk was made of poplar rather than maple and not
properly sealed at the factory was coming back to bite me here. I had to partially
take the motor apart again and work to more thoroughly seal all the air channels. I
had taken the usual pains to seal all air channels on this unit but it turns out that
heroic measures were called for rather than routine ones due to the poor original sealing
the unit got at the factory. For this reason, the final photo of the finished motor
will have to wait until the end of this photo series. I continued to work on other
components while I waited for each level of resealing work to dry thoroughly.
54) The head assembly has been restored and refinished and is now ready to be tubed
to the stack. Note that the tracking mechanism has been reinstalled but the wind
motor is still not ready to be placed onto the head.
55) 
56) 
57) 
55) Tubing up the system. The original design called
for lead tubing down to the crossover manifold where it changed over to rubber. I'm
running neoprene throughout. This required me to drill out the crossover in order to
make space for the new neoprene tubing to pass unobstructed. Great care must be
taken when replacing lead tubing with neoprene. First, you must guard all cuts in
the skin from exposure to the oxides on the lead to prevent lead poisoning. Second,
the lead was originally used in order to pack the tubing into a confined space which would
clear the action. The neoprene tubing is less readily kept in such a confined space
and so it must be run with great care and an eye towards neatness.
56) Adding cotton braiding to help keep the tubing tight to the head and away from
the action.
57) The pump before work began. I apologize that this photo came out a bit
fuzzy...
58) 
59) 
60) 
58) The pump has been largely taken apart.
59) Now each of the four large pneumatics are taken totally apart and restored.
This particular pump was made with plywood which is faced with mahogany veneer.
This type of plywood can become quite leaky so I take great pains to seal it
thoroughly inside and out. Originally, no sealant was applied to the inner surfaces
at all but I do apply it everywhere except where a flap valve or hinge must seat.
60) This is the main trunk to which all the pneumatic components attach. It
must have all the surfaces which are made to have leathered slide valves seat on it trued
up and lubricated. Also, the inside must be sealed to get it totally air tight again
and the exterior repainted for a good cosmetic result. Also, the control arms for
play/rewind and tempo had seen some wear and one had broken; requiring that it be reglued.
To seal this trunk, all the openings except one are taped off and then the trunk is
filled with sealant and then the excess is drained out. After the sealant dries,
fresh tape is put over every hole but one and then the trunk tested through the one
remaining opening to see that no air is leaking into it. This trunk tested out very
air tight when I was finished.
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