Restoration of a Mason & Hamlin Ampico for David Lucas Graves & John Herrmann
178) 
179) 
180) 
178) As I worked on taking the old transmission apart, I
discovered that the pot metal brake was cracked near the set screw. In addition, the
small upper gear has to be driven off the shaft. While doing this, the other gear
that was held to the shaft by the small brass gear got cracked. In this photo, you
see the old transmission at the left the new one in the middle and a spare one I had from
an orphaned mechanism on the right. My spare transmission had a good brake on it and
I was able to replace the cracked gear with one from it as well. I have often had
ideas of using the orphaned Amphion parts I have in stock to assemble a mechanism to put
into some waiting piano that has lost its original. However, this project has sucked
up enough spare parts from that supply that I believe I will forget about it...
179) The rebuilt transmission on its new aluminum frame. The frame is painted
black as is traditional for Amphion transmissions. While I had it apart, I went
overboard and polished every single part to a high gloss.
180) The newly rebuilt transmission installed into the drawer. To the right of
the transmission in this photo is a rod which has its washer, collar and gear taken off
and setting on the bottom. I took this apart because the bushing for the rod on this
side was worn. You can see the new red felt of the new bushing in the photo.
The green felt strip that lays under the ladder chain is new as well.
181) 
182) 
183) 
181) Now back to the wind motor. Usually a motor like
this takes half a day to rebuild. This motor had been very badly damaged by the mice
that had made it their home. They had urinated and defecated all over it.
Usually the slide valve blocks which are attached to the pneumatics are left alone and the
pneumatics are recovered with them in place. However, the glue joints that held them
together were questionable so I knocked them completely apart. Every aspect of this
motor required four times as much work as is usual. It took me two full days to
rebuild this motor. Because all the parts had gotten so corroded and coated with
muck, the bushings on everything went bad. I always replace the crank
bushings. However, this needed to have all the connecting rod bushings at both ends
as well as all the slide valve bushings replaced. Now that it's done, it is as good
as new; perhaps better. It is definitely very air tight and smooth in its operation.
It is slightly stiff still due to the new bushings but I ran it a good while after
finishing up with it and freed things up a lot. It will just get better as it is
used and the bushings free up to their final correct working tension. If you don't
make the bushings just a little tight at first, they will end up loose after a hundred
hours of playing for so.
182) The left side of the drawer being put back together.
183) The right side of the drawer.
184) 
185) 
186) 
184) I lost the photo of the bottom after I retubed it.
There is something going wrong with my camera. The original lead tubing was
totally shot so I replaced it with new neoprene. This is a challenging task as the
neoprene is harder to fit into the required space than the lead was. This photo also
shows the fact that the two rear tubing covers have been missing from this drawer.
New ones will have to be made. I have two which are water damaged but that serve
well enough as templates.
185) Here, you see me using the covers I own as templates to make new covers.
The stand offs for these covers were also missing and had to be added to the drawer in
order for it to be right.
186) The new covers being test fitted to the drawer. They will be removed one
more time in order to paint them black.
187) 
188) 
189) 
187) Just a few more shots of the rebuilt drawer assembly.
A few minor things remain to be tubed up since I'm out of a couple of sizes of
tubing.
188) Another shot.
189) The whole drawer.
190) 
191) 
192) 
190) The pump before work began.
191) Here is the pump from the other side. The arrow is pointing to a spot on
the equalizer that appears to have a problem.
192) The job of the equalizer is to steady the suction level. With only four
pneumatics pulling air out of the system, there is a certain amount of inevitable suction
level instability. The equalizer steadies this down to the point where it is smooth
enough for the expressions to fully stabilize it. The original equalizer had been
exposed to so much moisture that the pressure from the internal springs had busted the
layers of the wood apart. It might have been possible to glue it back together but I
doubt that I could ever have gotten this pneumatic really air tight. Not to mention
the fact that I doubt that it would have been really reliable. Instead, I've made a
new equalizer using high end no voids premium birch plywood. The new equalizer
boards are shown to the right. At the left are the damaged original equalizer and
the layer that had come completely off pictured to the far left.
193) 
194) 
195) 
193) Gluing the pneumatic cloth onto the equalizer after the
hinge had been installed as well as the heavy material that is glued and nailed to the
movable end to help resist the pressure of the springs. When this pneumatic was
finished, even the extreme pressure of the springs pressing on it was not enough to make
it open when it was collapsed and taped shut. This means that I got this baby REALLY
air tight.
194) Much of why the previous restoration work to this piano had been so badly done
is about to be discovered. First, this photo shows the top of the pump. The
photo shows the spill valve (bottom left) and the "brilliante" pneumatic (bottom
right.) At the top is the air handling manifold that also contains the stack cut out
pouch that shuts air off to the stack during rewind. The screw heads on this device
were covered in bee's wax at the factory and should have new wax applied during
restoration. The last rebuilder failed to do this...
195) Now we find out why. Under the spill plate (which is the board that all
the items mentioned in #194 are screwed to) there was a notation.. The thing was
retubed and the pneumatics recovered back in 1976. No valve leathers, gasket
leathers or pouches had been replaced during that supposed restoration. Even the
pneumatic covering had not been done correctly and now I understand why. The person
who did the work was a retired pipe organ rebuilder. While pipe organs do use
pneumatic systems that are similar to player pianos, pipe organs work on pressure rather
than suction. In addition, pipe organs have lots of surplus wind so it isn't
necessary to have good sealing gaskets, pneumatics, valves or pouches. In fact, the
leather pouches are seldom sealed in pipe organ work except for the purpose of preserving
them; not for making them air tight. Pipe organ rebuilders often think they can
restore pianos because they believe all pneumatic systems are alike. This isn't the
case. Pianos must be absolutely air tight in every way and every valve must have
exactly the right gap or the thing simply won't work. Pipe organs have plenty of
room for haphazard and careless restoration. One look inside this pump reveals a
telling detail. The bushings and wedges in the connecting rods are to be lubricated
only with dry graphite powder. These had all been soaked with oil. In
addition, the pump was already about 50 to 60 years old when the previous restoration
occurred. This means that the bushings were already worn badly enough to make the
pump knock. However, the bushings in these connecting rods are original. When
he was done "restoring" this mechanism, the pump undoubtedly made thumping
noises right from the beginning.
196) 
197) 
198) 
196) A hint at how many parts an Ampico pump contains.
Many sub-assemblies have yet to be taken apart and there is still so much that it
barely fits in the photo. As I take these pumps apart, I usually do some of the
repainting, cleaning and restoration to each part as it comes off the pump. In this
photo, some of the items have already been repainted.
197) This is the stack cut out pouch and the air manifold that divides the suction
supply to the various areas that need it. The leather that is on the pouch block is
in good shape. The gasket leather that was on the manifold was also in good shape.
However, the block was not even close to air tight, proving once again that a pipe
organ guy rebuilt it. He just didn't appreciate how air tight things had to be.
The manifold will be filled with sealer and then drained. The pouch leather
will be taken off the cut out pouch block; the block will be heavily sealed to ensure it
is totally air tight and a new pouch will be glued in place. I will seal the pouch
with straight Dow 111 to ensure it is totally air tight. Sluggish cut out pouches
tend to make rude noises when the piano goes from play to rewind...
198) The bottom of the spill plate with its original cork gasket. The dirty
spill valve which was never recovered is shown and the "brilliante" pneumatic
has been pulled apart and resealed on the inside in preparation for rehinging and then
recovering.
199) 
200) 
201) 
199) The spill valve has been releathered as has the cut out
pouch. That pouch is now totally air tight as is the manifold.
200) Ampico pumps are a bit of a pain to rebuild. There are so many flap
valves (and the inside flap valves seat on another layer of leather) that it takes an
entire day just to clean off the old leather, remove the hardware and clean it up, make
new flap valves and valve seats and put it all back together again and then rehinge the
bellows. In this photo, two of the leather seats are about to be indexed to the
holes in one of the bellows.
201) There is also a metal bar that runs between the leather seat and the flap
valves. This bar is intended to quiet the operation of the flaps. In reality,
you can releather these bellows and leave those bars out and the pump will run just as
quiet. However, since they were included originally, I keep them in. However,
I do make slight variations in how the leather seats are cut so that the metal silencers
will recess partially into the surface of the leather. This makes for a tighter
result especially while the pump is still new. Over time, the flap valves take on
the shape of the metal silencers but the pump is less tight until they do. This way,
the pump is tight right from the start. Another aspect of these pumps is worthy of
note here. The original design had a suede side facing up on the seats and a suede
side of the flap valve mating with it. Suede to suede. The reason for this was
to create an even and silent leak. The pump (if it were totally air tight) would
stall the motor it is capable of generating so much suction. This controlled leak
was used to keep the motor from bogging down. However, as the pump ages and gets
leaky in other areas, the controlled leak in these flap valves becomes a problem rather
than an asset. Since I have every confidence that the spill valve is capable of
providing any leakage the pump needs, I'm trying something new with this pump that I've
never done on an Ampico before. I'm placing the finished side up on the leather
seats and sealing that surface with Dow 111. After the Dow 111 dries, I'm placing
the flap valves in place in the traditional way and sealing its upper, finished side with
Dow 111 as well. I think that some controlled leakage will still be in effect in
this way but that it will be greatly reduced. If my surmise is correct, this will
allow the pump to retain full pumping capabilities even decades from now when it has
started to develop leaks from normal use.
202) 
203) 
204) 
202) Here is another example of something I've done for
years. I always want the outside flap valves to be as air tight as possible.
To do this, I lap the surface on which the valve seats with fine sandpaper mounted on
glass. I remove all the paint that has been placed over the area that the flap valve
will occupy in this way. Since the valve will rest on the wood here and the valve
will have sealant on its outer surface, the wood will be about as protected here as
anywhere that has paint. I, then, tape off the area where the valve will sit and
repaint the rest of the board. I feel that this arrangement allows this flap valve
to be a bit more air tight than it was when it left the factory originally. To
ensure this is so, I use a leather which is more supple than what was used originally.
More supple leather has to be cut a bit wider and shorter than the originals and
then it must be pre-stretched before being installed. Because it is more flexible,
it can seat into the wood and the holes therein more tightly and create a better seal.
A coat of Dow 111 on the outer surface helps to preserve the valve and keep it more
air tight and stable as well.
203) The completed inside and outside flap valve assemblies for one bellows.
204) All the bellows have been releathered as well as having been cleaned up of all
their old hinge cloth and rubber cloth coverings. New hinges are now being
installed. The original Amphion design for the hinges was very strong even though it
used very little material. The fault with their hinge design is that the hinge end
would have an uneven surface since only part of the wood was covered in hinge material.
The places where you have to go up and over hinge material and back down onto the
wood are prime locations for leakage. I prefer to use a fairly flexible and light
but strong material and place inside and outside "cover all" hinges. These
make for a very strong and flexible hinge that is very unlikely to generate leaks.
205) 
206) 
207) 
205) This is a photo of (from bottom to top) the cut-out
manifold, the spill plate, and the all new pump equalizer. The spill plate was
signed by the last person to work on this piano. The fact that the last person to
work on this was a pipe organ rebuilder before he retired explains a lot of why the work
was only half done and what was done was not so good. Pipe organs have plenty of air
supply so they don't need their components to be sealed all that well for them to function
well. When pipe organ rebuilders try their hands at pianos, they don't have the
understanding and/or the skills to rebuild the system so that it is totally air
tight. If a reproducing player piano isn't sealing perfectly, it won't work
right. In fact, it might not work at all. I doubt that this piano ever played
well after the last rebuild attempt based upon the techniques employed previously.
Even accounting for the age of the work...
206) The four pumping bellows after they were finished and ready for reassembly.
207) This shows the connecting arms and the spider which connects all of the bellows
to the drive shaft. None of these have received any restoration. Since the
bushings of the connecting arms are all original and knowing, as I do, that these bushings
must be replaced every ten to twenty years of normal use, I can state with confidence that
this pump "knocked" from the very moment the last rebuilder finished it.
Ampico pumps are notorious for knocking. In fact, it is laughingly referred to as
the "Ampico Pump Thump!" The spring loaded wedges that insert inside the
connecting arms were intended to take up any slop as the bushings wore over time.
In fact, they don't help with that much at all. However, if they aren't perfectly
clean and lubed with dry graphite only and if the bushings aren't very tight on their
pins, these wedges will make noise.
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Reserved.