Developing a Restoration Philosophy

I mentioned at the beginning of this project that it might move slowly, and indeed, it is moving more slowly than I’d like.  At the moment I am a bit overloaded at work—I am the director of music at an Episcopal Church with a couple of choirs, a busy fall schedule, and, of course, the demands of December looming—so I have limited time to spend with the restoration.  But I have spent, perhaps, 10 minutes a day on the instrument and can report this progress:

Work bench.  Coco, my assistant, looks
up from underneath.

My partner kindly bought me a work table which I have set up in the music room right next to the harmonium, so I now have a dedicated work “bench.”  This will make the music room jammed and cluttered, which I hate, but I will live with that for this worthy cause.  The lever harps are huddling behind the grand piano and the pedal harp has moved to the living room.  That also makes the already-crowded living room too crowded, which I will also live with—or perhaps the harp will go live at church for awhile.

My first goal has been to remove the keyboard in order to clean the keys and clean the keybed under them.  I am not convinced that this is the first thing that should happen—I think rebuilding the winding system is really the first thing that should happen—but the keyboard is more accessible and the task more doable for a novice like myself.  In order to remove the keys, I first had to remove the superstructure above it.  This superstructure contains a rail that runs along the center of the keys (just behind the ivories and the raised ebony part of the sharps), and contains the builder’s label, displayed under glass, and at its back has a vertical piece with holes that the stop pulls pass through.  Since the stop pulls are attached to the stop action behind the keyboard, the first order of business (I thought) was to remove the stop pulls so that the rail could be removed. At first glance, this seemed to require nothing more than removing a screw at the back of each stop pull that connected the back end of the stop pull to a lever by which it activated the stop. 

Screw at back of stop pull, damaged a
bit by my trying to remove it.

These are wood screws, approximately ½” long, with round heads with a straight slot.  But the screws are quite rusted, such that the slots are partially filled with rust; and these screws have probably been in place since the instrument was built (sometime between the 1860’s and 1904), and with over a hundred years of the wood in the stop pulls expanding and shrinking around the screw shanks due to humidity, some of these screws have become virtually immobile.  Part of the problem is that the access to each screw is impeded by the neighboring stop assembly, so it’s impossible to fit a screwdriver with a long blade, that would give good leverage, to the screw head.  So I had to use a small, short screwdriver.  And then the rust in the slot on the screw head prevents a good fit.  Once I could get a purchase on a given screw, it often still wouldn’t move.  Consulting the “experts” (i.e. the internet) about how to remove a frozen wood screw, I tried the following: (1) WD40 (2) mineral oil (3) heat.  No success!  One screw head broken (yikes!) and the tail end of a couple stop pulls oiled or slightly charred.  (Yikes again!)

Then I realized that the entire structure over the keyboard could be lifted out of the way and pivot on the screws at the tail end of the stop pulls (you can see this clearly in the "work bench" photo above); and once that was done, the structure itself could be disassembled.  That I did, which I’ll get to in my next post.  But finally, the keys were completely exposed and could be removed.

Before I continue to describe my activities I wish to digress and talk about developing a restoration philosophy.  Years ago, I happened to hear a talk by John Watson, who is the conservator and associate curator of musical instruments at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.  I then heard him give another talk some years later.  In both those talks, he made me aware of the tension that exists, when restoring an antique musical instrument, between bringing it back to playing condition, and preserving it as a historical document.  I also am aware, having watched hours of Antiques Roadshow, of the possibility of destroying an antique’s market value by removing the patina of age through cleaning or refinishing, etc.  This all suggests a series of courses of action, from most conservative to least: 

1. Most conservative: do nothing
2. Return to playable condition with minimum intervention: just enough cleaning and rust-removal to free moving parts; no removal of rust from non-moving parts (e.g. screws); no cleaning of case or tops of keys; rebuild bellows with existing fragments and use new wood only where existing parts are missing; keep existing stop pull labels (even though they are not original and make no sense).
3. Return to playable condition with limited cosmetic intervention: gently clean everything to remove surface grime but otherwise leave finishes intact.  Remove rust from metal parts. 
4. Partial rebuild: as above, but cut new wooden parts for feeder bellows; install new historically accurate stop pull labels.
5. Partial rebuild with refinishing: as above, plus remove stain from ivory keys (if possible) and refinish case to high gloss
6.  Restore to “new” condition: as above, plus additional intervention so that final result looks “brand new,” maybe even “newer” than it might have looked originally (for instance, how about red felt bushings around the stop pulls rather than brown?)  May require replacement of some parts with fabricated new parts.
7. Least conservative: Go to town.  Paint the thing.  Add an electric blower.  Add MIDI. (I'm joking of course!) Etc. 

Now, frankly, I have not bought this harmonium to turn a profit on it; and even if I restored it to shiny-and-new condition, the harmonium market is so tiny that I don’t think I’d make much of a return on my investment.  The reason I bought this harmonium is that I hope I can return it to playing condition and then, enjoy playing it!  But having done that much, I expect the instrument to outlive me, and I like the idea of maintaining its historicity for anyone interested in it and for its future owner(s).  So currently I’m proceeding at level 3 or maybe level 4 above, only because I’d really like the labels on the stop pulls to make sense.  Perhaps there can be a level between levels 3 and 4, where I replace the stop pull labels, but keep the existing stop labels and photo-document how they appeared when I purchased the instrument.  I also am secretly yearning to replace the carpet on the bellows treadles (which I think is modern carpet) with some sort of upholstered silk that appears to be of the period.

Speaking of photo-documentation, I keep forgetting to include photos--so here are some more project photos:

Side of case. It's dirty and scratched,
but I think this must be the original
finish.

Detail: decorative scroll work at
bottom right of front of case.

Walter getting ready to remove the
harmonium from the van

Back of stop action before initial vacuuming.
  Bits of pink swimming pool
"noodle" (put there by squirrels, I think)
still visible.  Rusted rod below stop action is
the roller for the Grand Jeu.

Keyboard and stop action before initial
cleaning.  

Bass end of key bed exposed.  Left end of
bass "forté" shutter extending out from
under keyboard at left of photo.

Grime visible at lower left corner of key.
The grime easily comes off with a damp
cloth, but not the staining of the ivory,
which is not on the surface.

Condition of feeder bellows as purchased.  I have some, maybe all, the
component parts of the bellows, so this might be a "simple"
issue of releathering.