Electrical Safety in Restoration By D

Electrical Safety in Restoration
By D. L. Bullock

In response to Bruce Clark, I must say "Yes, you should ALWAYS replace ALL electrical wiring with new EVERY time you restore a player piano or even refurbish it."

In our shop we would no more leave old wire than we would fly from a fourth story window. It might be just fine right now, but in five or ten years -- who knows? Do you want to go into your piano every couple of years to check on the wiring you should have replaced up front? I know player folk who do that to all other parts of their instrument and they are constantly having to tear into the player to replace the next round of stuff to fail. We suggest, "Do it all now and enjoy the music for the next 30 years."

When replacing wire use good quality black extension cord wire of thicker gauge than the original if possible. This will insure that you will never have heat buildup. You may also use "Greenfield" or metal clad wire but look for larger stranded gauges as before.

Also every switch and plug should be taken apart and have all parts cleaned until the brass is brass color again. If you have ever opened up an antique on/off switch you will notice that all the contacts are black. Every time the piano goes off the contacts arc fire and burn a little. After enough times of doing that, the resistance when the switch is on rises eventually to the point that the switch heats up and eventually burns.

Another item that is VERY important for your Steinway or Knabe Reproducing pianos especially is “HAVE THE MOTORS REFURBISHED by a professional motor shop." I have seen several fine Steinway Duo_Arts that started a house fire, or -- if they were caught in time -- just have a neat round burned hole in the soundboard above the motor.

Your motor professional will go into the motor coils and replace the insulated wire leads into the motor. He will also check the bearings, brushes, starters and everything else.

This service usually costs around $250, but you cannot replace the motor for any price as it is a special speed for pianos. You certainly cannot replace your house for that amount if it burns down. Since we send every motor out during restoration that liability rests with the motor shop.

D. L. Bullock Piano World St. Louis

Electric Motors in Automatic instruments
By D. L. Bullock
This was originally published on Mechanical Music Digest in 2000. (Message sent Fri 31 Mar 2000)
With all of us talking about pumps, let me mention motors:

Every time you restore a reproducing piano, send the motor out to the motor shop for a complete check up.

There is nothing worse than a Steinway Duo-Art that has a large round hole burned through the soundboard. This happens! Take no chances.

The State of Missouri requires that if you restore the piano then you are responsible if the motor burns down the house. If the motor shop rebuilt the motor and the house were to burn down, then they are responsible.

We, therefore, take all our motors to the East St. Louis Company that built many of these type of motors. They check out everything, replace leads to the coils, check or replace bearings, starter switches, power cords, repack wadding. This usually costs us about $250. Sometimes less, but if the bearing or starter is out expect to pay up to $400.00. If it needs rewinding then it will be more. They are not making any more of these motors these days so take care of the ones that still exist. I had one Steinway motor that had a particularly odd bearing with 12 holes drilled at odd angles. The job on that motor cost $600.00 In future I will have that bearing made in a machine shop and it should cost less than having them do it.

Do not ignore this warning, please -- if you like your piano and your house. This will be especially important if you use a PowerRoll or E-roll system where the piano is enjoyed, from another room and the motor runs for hours at a time. Long periods of time with the piano being ignored, i.e. not having to change rolls every 3-15 minutes, will allow an overheated motor not to be noticed till it is too late.

If you can't find a motor shop that can get your motor out in less than a month or if there is the interest, I will post the address of this company (Century Electric aka Bradford Elect.) in East St. Louis. You could ship the motors to them and tell them you want them checked out just like the ones they get from Piano World. I do not want to haul your motors over there myself, as I have done for some of you, if there is a flurry of motor work. I don't mind one every so often as I take them over there myself every few months. If you feel better having me hand deliver the motor to them, I tack on $50 to cover two trips across the mighty Mississippi, plus shipping is extra.

They do the motor and then tote up the bill, which must be paid before returning it to you. As a rule they don't know how much it needs until it is taken apart and I haven't had them give me quotes first so I do not know if they would or could. I do know they are honest and very reliable

D. L. Bullock Piano World St. Louis