Player Piano Restoration
Player pianos are complicated instuments with hundreds to thousands of moving parts. If you have an instrument that you wish to recieve an estimate for repair or restoration, please contact Roger and provide as much information concerning the piano as possible. This includes, but is not limited to age, make, model, current condition, and known previous repairs. Any photos you can include would be very helpful. For the most accurate estimate, Roger often needs to see the instument in person, and may need top do some disassembly in order to get the most accurate idea as to the cost required to bring your instrument back to the condition it was when it was first manufactured.
Historically, Pedals Pumpers & Rolls has been concerned with the restoration of fine player instruments of 1910 to 1930. These pianos were hand built by craftsmen using the finest material available. Only/a handful of very expensive modem pianos measure up to the products of that era since the level of craft in current production and availability of top quality materials has declined. Roger has mastered the craft of player instruments and worked forty years, restoring hundreds of pianos and, whether the piano is a foot pumped upright found in the average home of the day, or the finest of reproducing player grands or special uprights found in the homes of the wealthy - all receive equal attention to detail and a high standard of workmanship.
While the foot-pumped players mostly cranked out the top ten of the day (the player supplied the expression), the reproducing grand and special uprights were able to re-create the performances of the world's greatest pianists of the day. The reproducers were fully capable of bringing Gershwin, Rachmaninoff, Paderewski, or Ganz to you living room for a concert. These pianos with names like Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, Chickering, Weber, Balwin and others, set the world's standard for quality. The reproducing mechanisms, while high-tech of the day, provide concert stage performances which even now can barely (and VERY expensively) be equaled by electronic, digitally powered systems. None of the above can take away from the fun of sitting down and prunping out a twenties song (or a classical piece) yourself and adding your own interpretation. The decision is yours to make as to how you like your music created, and the variety of songs on piano rolls for either type is almost without limit and still available today
To bring back any of these fine instruments, be it a foot pumper, reproducing piano, or nickelodeon/ orchestrion, every aspect of the instrtunent must receive appropriate restoration before the whole can perform again. Unfortunately, "quick fixes" and "patch ups" do not exist in 80 to 100 year old instruments where the quality and condition of the leather, rubberized cloth and tubing is what enables the machine function properly (or at all). None of the original material can be trusted to do the job and some materials installed in work done over 35 years ago are also deteriorated beyond use and must be replaced.