If you have a player piano that needs work, you may already have found that most Piano Tuners will not work on the player mechanism. Repairing it might take many days or weeks. Very few people are willing to pay for all of the hours of labor so they only repair the piano. When an old piano has developed many leaks, it may play but is very hard to pump, and Piano Tuners who will not repair the player action will quite often install our Electrification Kit to do the pumping. This is something you too can do. It requires drilling a hole and fastening several  parts with screws.  

To order one of these kits click here.


A good craftsman can make many repairs if he decides to tackle a tedious job. The mechanism is an assembly of bellows, pneumatics, valves, and a brass tracker bar connected with rubber tubing. It operates on air (actually suction) and many parts of the system can leak. The motor may not work right and individual notes might not play.

The thing to do is stop as many leaks as possible if you know how. In 1963, Durrell furnished information and help to Larry Givens, who was writing a book named "Rebuilding the Player Piano." The book was easy for a beginner to understand, and it had a reference to Player Piano Company as the place to buy parts. The book sold 50,000 copies and was distributed to many libraries as well as stores over the country.



Click smaller image 
for a larger view.

This how-to book and supplies from our company have made it possible for tens of thousands of people to repair pianos in the 38 years since then. Please click here to view pages from the book.

In the following years, old pianos that had been abandoned came out of barns and storage into homes and museums. On TV the old-time player piano sound and ragtime became common. Our company soon had the largest selection of parts and accessories in the world. Parts are regularly shipped all over the world.

This company started because the owner was fascinated by an old piano when he was in high school. Durrell bought one and worked on it in the garage. Trying to repair it without the right materials was terrible so he began writing to factories and buying basic materials like tubing and rubberized cloth but had to buy larger quantities than he needed, so he started his mail order company and advertised in antique trade magazines.

After the book was published business boomed. Every time somebody asked for a part that was not in stock, it became a challenge. New replacement parts for particular piano brands were added to the catalog so fast that they lost money for several years. Manufacturing small quantities profitably is difficult, and for that reason there was little competition. Other companies manufacture only the most profitable items.

In the 1960's and 70's the player piano was being rediscovered by the younger generations, and older generations were affected by the nostalgia of the "Good old' Days".  With the boom and bust of the recession in the early 1980's the demand for restoration supplies declined replaced by computer driven mechanisms operating player pianos via solenoids; the old vacuum and paper roll systems gave way to the new technology.  In 1985 the book "Rebuilding the Player Piano" went out of print, but in the interest of preserving historical documents, Larry Given's book, which fostered this revival, is reproduced here in part.   Please click here to view pages from the book.