Piano World Enterprises St. Louis Metro

12/03/2021

If anyone is interested in seeing how the ampico crescendo works there's a tiktok video on it now I just loaded it.

08/25/2021

Reproduction Tangley Calliophone.
Just needed some touch-up regulation and pipe polishing. Pressure adjustment for proper speech of pipes. Customer wants to sell

12/02/2020

Madame Laura has now been regulated so she plays faster notes and makes full throated music more musical than ever before. She will be leaving St Louis metro Friday for her new home at Memphis Public Television WKNO TV and FM.

Recent Cold snap put her tuning a bit off, but she was originally on a carousel regularly moving from town to town and living outside most of the time

10/04/2020

Recently added footlights to Madam Laura. Now she is well lit Inside and out

06/06/2020

The first video shows the windex test of the blue polylon used in the early production of the Universal player pianos. Blue or red polylon is always bad at this age. Second video shows
a method I came up with to remove the pneumatics which are stuck on with some sort of 1970s epoxy. So instead of heating the pneumatics which burns the wood and melts the polylon we heated the aluminum pouch rail. So far the only other method of removal shreds about half of the pneumatic boards

06/06/2020

This year we have restored three of the universal Aluminum stack player pianos. One for a customer is a Baldwin very late and the pneumatics did not need recovering. Right now we are rebuilding the stack on the Nickelodeon version we have that belongs to the shop. This is an early Universal you can tell because the yellow perflex pouches are totally trashed. The quarters in the coin box were all from the early nineties latest one being 1996 so it's been a while since it played. The pouches just pop out we replace them with standard pouch leather.

03/22/2020

I have used hot hide glue since I was a teenager learning to rebuild player systems and only installing dampers and hammers on refurbished piano actions. To this day I use it for practically everything. I used what Durrell Armstrong sold at Player Piano Company for years and noticed that it crusted up and could come loose occasionally. I now use the better-quality high clarity hide glue flakes which I buy in bulk.

I started out using an electric pop corn popper full of water with a glass mason jar of glue in it.I later graduated to an actual glue pot which I purchased from Durrell at PPCo. For decades I made the glue in there and fought with it. Plugged it in in the morning waited an hour or two and I would have to add water or flakes as it was never the perfect consistency.

In case I did not use it for a few days, I would often find that on the bottom side of the blob of glue it had molded and when it heated for
use, the mold would have destroyed the glue. Sometimes if it was too wet the mold would be on top in just a day or two of non use.I could just wash that off under running water and use the glue just fine.

I found for some reason the glue pots did not come with a lid to let them heat the glue faster in the morning, so I had to make one cutting a niche for the glue brush to stick out.

Then the metal glue wiper that comes inside the glue pot insert rusted and that would destroy the glue. Also I had one aluminum liner that corroded and was eaten up forming a hole so it leaked These many woes of hot hide glue are enough to make many people leave the glue completely and use modern glues.

I have tried modern glues but they do not work as well as the old hot glue. Luckily I discovered a method to get rid of all the troubles we
have with the glue pot. Thirty years ago I began making up the glue in translucent squeeze bottles and most of the problems have disappeared.I fill a dozen squeeze bottles with 3/4 full of glue flakes and add hot tap water to be 1/4" above the saturated glue flake level. Stir or shake to get water all the way to the bottom here. Put these bottles in a large stock pot of water on the stove and use low heat boiling the water slowly until they melt the glue down. I think that is likely less than an
hour.

With the spouts on the bottles pull each one out every 10 minutes or so and shake it to mix the glue and distribute the heat. When the glue is all made up put all but 3 of the bottles of glue into the refrigerator for later use when needed and put those 3 bottles into use. (Alternatively: you may make up only three at one time in the glue pot itself with liner removed of course. [no water in the glue pot EVER])

Remove the gluepot liner from the holdheet glue pot and DO NOT ADD WATER. just put the 3 Prepared bottles into the glue pot without the liner.The pot will heat them just fine.When they have heated in the glue pot insert a thermometer into an open glue bottle to check the temp.Expect to need to open up the pot with 2 screws at the top and adjust the thermostat found on the very bottom of the pot inside.

Turn Screw clockwise 1/8 of a turn or less at a time to raise temperature. Put it all back together and let it stay heating the glue long enough to measure the heat again.You want the temperature of the glue to be 140-150F degrees.160 or higher will ruin the glue and less than 140 will make for glue too thick and cold to bond right.

As you see I have had an aluminum insert made for one pot but I used the 3 without anything in between bottles for decades before I found a machinist to make the insert.I had a friend make an insert with holes for 3 bottles and that works too.

I used to get the bottles from a US manufacturer that made poly bottles that were not affected by the heat used but now that manufacturer no longer makes them in the US.I now must go to Ali Express or to the local restaurant supply to get food service bottles.8 oz is what I have used the most but recently I found that the 12 oz bottles work and fit just as well.

When not in use for more than 24 hours take the bottles out and refrigerate them to prevent molding. If you see mold on top of the cold
glue just put it under the tap and use a finger to rub off the mold before you heat it.Rinse it out well and pop it into the pot for heating. It usually takes about 30 minutes to heat prepared glue to useful temperature.Shaking the bottles as they heat after 10 minutes can
speed things up

Now when using the bottled glue, pick up the bottle and squeeze it slightly.THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! If you pull the bottle out and turn it over without the squeeze, expect it to blow glue out all over everything making a huge mess.When you squeeze it a little you can control the glue coming out and put glue only where you want it.You only need glue brushes if you have large areas to glue.

I squeeze a bead of glue out on what I am gluing then use my pinky to spread it.Pinkys don't get used much so you don't get glue on anything while working.Hold your glue covered pinky out like ladies drinking tea and every so often you may wipe the pinky off onto a rag.

I find this technique with hot hide glue something that has saved me many hours over the decades I have used it.

ALSO For special use: For example if you need to glue in a piano soundboard or any time you need the glue to cover a large area and you
don't want it to cool and firm up too fast here is more info for you. To make hot hide glue that does not firm up as it cools and stays workable until it dries out...also something that you work with a while and then you will clamp over a day or two, there are a couple of things you can do.

1. add Thiourea an industrial chemical that is, surprise: Urea

2. make up your bottle of glue flakes with the morning's first urine.Yes! use p**s because early morning p**s has higher urea content.

When glue is made this way it will not firm up when cool but will stay mostly liquid.Clamp it and let it dry overnight or longer.

This may perhaps be the way they make liquid hide glue as found in woodworking stores.I make my own more often than I buy the commercial version though.

I think you will become a hot hide glue convert pretty quickly if you use these techniques

10/11/2019

Tuning is off a bit after the first fall cold snap this morning. But here is Under the Anheuser-Busch a newly repaired book from Kevin Meayers arrived from England this morning

10/10/2019

A nice article about the large European Carousel organ we restored and presently sits in our shop for finishing touches and display later this month.
This Article is from before restoration back in 2008. There should be a new article coming out soon about the restoration. Pic is after restoration

01/15/2019

Next year it will be the ROARING TWENTIES again. Its time for you to learn to Charleston, one-step, two-step, and you should ESPECIALLY buy yourself a player piano to dance and sing roaring twenties music. Here is how we learn to play your player piano.

http://thepianoworld.com/ http://facebook.com/doug.l.bullock If you like this please rate the video press LIKE and leave a comment. Thanks! This like new res...

09/14/2018

While I do not make keyboards, for several decades I have restored many keyboards as well as restored the full piano, keys, strings, soundboard, action, pinblock, case and everything else that is part of a piano. I also restore the player systems that play pianos, reed organs, pipe organs, orchestrions. I am presently the last person in St. Louis still actively restoring pianos and their player systems. There were several at one time. I remember 5 restorers 20 years ago. 2 years ago there were 3 of us. One has died and the other one has drastically cut back on restoration and has referred future restoration work to me.I can only tip my hat to Richard at Detroit Piano Works, someone who I suspect I will be tapping for a new keyboard in the future when the piano in need of such finds its way to my shop door.
I am glad to see he has incorporated CAD/CAM and computer controlled manufacturing machinery into this ancient art. I have started to do the same and it has allowed us to save time and money doing certain things that took days or weeks more to do back in the day of all manual manufacturing.
I respect his abilities, his stubbornness in continuing this art which for now looks to be dying unless something changes in the future. But the pendulum swings perhaps pianos will have a resurgence. For now we are staying very busy and I wish there was an apprentice system like Europe used to have as I could use some help. Youngster are not interested in learning what I do….well there are a few but they can’t afford to take off and spend the years it takes to learn what I do and perhaps start or take over a business like this one I have built in this rarefied niche of keyboard instrument and player system restoration.

In a bar, at noon, just outside of Detroit would probably be the last place you’d expect to hear two guys having a spirited conversation about Bach, piano keyboards, and CNC machines...but here we are. I’m sitting next to Richard Cromwell, the owner of Detroit Pianoworks. Richard and his team ar...

09/11/2018

One of our friends attending the Mme. Laura comeback event posted this lovely video

https://www.facebook.com/james.aldinger/videos/10217420576732822/?t=3