In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

Maybe not, since we were (are) on the east coast, and you didn't
make the connection between Noel and Noel's Piano Supply.

I was only an amateur who restored a couple of pianos, so I wasn't so
intimately involved in the business. But I'll bet Dick would
recognize the name.

Later today I'll try to remember to ask my father if he remembers the
name

You ironed the cloth off? ugh. Lightly burn it and it comes off
easily. Sure, there are bellows that can't be easily burned, but
ironing-off the old cloth is sooooo slow.

It wasn't too slow if the iron was hot. The glue readily re-melted,
and the old pneumatic cloth slid right off.

Way quicker to put 10 or so into a C-clamp, lightly burn it, open the
clamp, use a floor-standing 6" belt-sander to clean off the pneumatics
(in groups of 3), being very careful of the hinged end.

Didn't burning the cloth
cause a lot of noxious fumes and char scaring of the wood?

fumes, yes. Noxious? I hope not. :-)

if you burned the wood, you burned it too much. Use a propane torch
to just get the cloth/glue to char/bubble just a little.

You didn't
use a torch to remove the pneumatic bellows from the stack did you;
you used an iron right?

For the pneumatics, the only time you need to use an iron is when chiseling
doesn't work. We had (and still have) a slightly dull wood chisel that was
perfect (if the chisel can cut pine, it's way too sharp). Start the pneumatic
with a hit or two underneath along the entire row, a hit or two on the side
and hinged end of each pneumatic, and they pop right off, usually. Sometimes
the glue is so old/dried that you can knock them off with one hit if you did it
just right - took practice.

The beauty of chiseling was that often they wouldn't come off clean and smooth,
which helped in positioning the pneumatic when we glued them back on.

If we broke one, we simply made a new one.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate