1911 Melville Clark “Apollo” Player Piano

Restoration Library / Apollo, Clark, Melville

BEFORE

This beautiful piano has suffered years of neglect and abuse. The interior mechanism is rotted and worn, and the strings are rusted and corroded so the piano is both unplayable and un-tunable. The old black finish is cracking and peeling, and the lovely copper banding inlay is coming away from the case.

AFTER

The player piano was restored back to like-new condition, inside and out, with historical accuracy. Original pneumatic player mechanisms have been reinstalled inside the restored piano, and the perforated music roll is once again churning out lively tunes as it did nearly a century ago!

Scroll down to see the piano restoration process!

ABOUT THIS PIANO: Player pianos like this one were once common in homes throughout the United States. In fact, long before the radio or phonograph, it was the player piano that introduced music to society on a large scale. Prior to the introduction of the player piano, the only way our ancestors knew the melody of a song was to learn it from a friend of family member, hear it played live on an instrument or by an ensemble, or to read it on a piece of printed music! It really is incredible to consider how important the player piano was to our ancestor’s culture and society.

Unfortunately, the self-playing mechanisms sometimes made tuning a player piano slightly more difficult than tuning a regular piano. This is because piano tuners would have to remove the player mechanisms in order to access the strings. When the player mechanisms stopped working after about 40 years, piano tuners would often remove the player mechanisms once and for all, throwing them in the trash with no consideration to them ever being restored.

This beautiful Melville Clark Apollo player piano was purchased new in 1911 and passed down through several generations. It is made of beautiful book-matched walnut wood and is of the Mission style. Unfortunately, the player mechanisms were removed by the local piano tuner sometime around World War II. Sometime between the 1940s and the 1980s, the piano was painted bright yellow, then years later the yellow paint was removed (along with the original finish and the original APOLLO name decal above the keyboard). When the current owners inherited the piano, they wanted to have it restored back to its former glory as a player piano.

Melville Clark was a pioneer and innovator, and his player pianos were like no other. Instead of using a traditional vacuum motor to run his music rolls, he used a spring-wound clockwork motor that is wound while pumping the pedals. The rest of the piano is pneumatically operated and operates by a perforated paper roll like traditional player pianos. This was a challenging project both restoring the piano and the player mechanisms. A combination of restoring original components and making new parts with historical accuracy resulted in a perfectly restored player piano that looks, plays and sounds just as it did when it was purchased new in 1911!

Scroll down to see the piano restoration process!

Piano Restoration Process:

Assessment & Disassembly

THIS PIANO SUFFERED AN AMATEUR ATTEMPT AND RESTORATION AND REFINISHING MANY YEARS AGO, ULTIMATELY DOING MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

Piano Restoration Process:

Cabinet Repair & Refinishing

POOR-QUALITY REPAIRS FROM A PREVIOUS RESTORATION LEFT THE BEAUTIFUL WALNUT CABINET BRITTLE AND FADED, CREATING QUITE A CHALLENGE FOR OUR TEAM OF EXPERT WOODWORKERS AND FINISHERS!

Piano Restoration Process:

Soundboard Repair & Re-Stringing

THE OLD BRITTLE STRINGS ARE REPLACED AND THE CRACKED SOUNDBOARD IS RESTORED. THE HARP IS RE-PAINTED WITH GOLD LACQUER, JUST LIKE IT WAS 100 YEARS AGO.

Piano Restoration Process:

Action & Keyboard Restoration

THE OLD IVORY KEYS, ONCE BRITTLE AND BROKEN, ARE RESTORED TO PERFECTION AND LOOK NEW ONCE AGAIN. THE OLD WORN STRINGS AND FELTS OF THE INTERNAL MECHANISMS HAVE BEEN RESTORED TO PERFECTION.

PHOTOS OF PIANO

AFTER COMPLETE RESTORATION

AFTER A TOTAL FRAME-OFF RESTORATION, THE PIANO AND PLAYER MECHANISMS LOOK, FUNCTION AND SOUND LIKE THEY DID WHEN THE PIANO WAS FACTORY NEW. THE BEAUTIFUL BOOK-MATCHED WALNUT CABINET IS ABSOLUTELY STUNNING ONCE AGAIN!

SEE AND HEAR THE FULLY RESTORED PIANO!

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