Singing Bird Automaton Restoration

[Curt A]

Before Sunday, I had never seen the insides of a singing bird. I bought this a week ago and was too anxious to hear it sing that I didn't want to wait to send it off for rebuild, so I decided to take it apart to see how it worked. After removing the cage and clockwork, I could see that the previous owner thought it would be a great idea to use blue painters tape and green paint to fix the bellows. The bellows is a three compartment wooden bellows, a bit more complicated than a cuckoo clock bellows. I decided to remove the bellows and the previous repairs to see what I was dealing with. Once removed, I took it down to bare wood and decided how to proceed. I watched a YouTube video on rebuilding a cuckoo clock bellows using DuPont Tyvek, which can be obtained from a Priority Mail envelope. This rebuild was pretty straight forward, but each compartment in the bellows has to be done individually. The pics show the progress and the rebuild was completely successful... The bird is now singing happily once again...

[Phonofreak]

Outstanding. That is great that you were able to do it yourself and save quite a bit of money. I hope you can post a video, so we can hear her sing.
Harvey Kravitz

[Curt A]

Thanks Harvey... The process was educational for me and proves that anyone who puts their mind to it can restore pretty much anything. I always say "If it's already broke, why not try to fix it?" The feeling of accomplishment is also worthwhile...

[phonogfp]

Thanks Harvey... The process was educational for me and proves that anyone who puts their mind to it can restore pretty much anything. I always say "If it's already broke, why not try to fix it?" The feeling of accomplishment is also worthwhile...

I don't know, Curt. My belief is that if a person is not mechanically inclined and/or good with their hands, they should respect their own limitations. Right now I'm fixing the depredations inflicted on a Rosenfield Illustrated Song Machine by someone years ago who clearly did not understand how the machine was supposed to work. For talented people such as yourself, indeed: "why not try to fix it?" But as for the "handyman" who worked on this ISM years ago, the damage is consuming significant time and expense to put it right. He would have been wiser to have left it alone.

Congratulations on your restoration!

George P.

[Curt A]

George,
You are probably right... I may underestimate my abilities and don't want to appear too self confident.

[phonojim]

Great job! Could you please post the address of the youtube video? I have one of these to restore also and could use any help I can get!

[phonogfp]

George,
You are probably right... I may underestimate my abilities and don't want to appear too self confident.

Curt,

In no way did I mean to imply any limitations of your abilities. You have demonstrated your skill here on several occasions, but all too often we see the results of others who have gone "a bridge too far" in their attempts to restore a machine. There's ample evidence that not just "anyone who puts their mind to it" is capable of restoring "pretty much anything."

Again, congratulations on your own skillful restorations.

George P.

[Curt A]

Phonojim,
This is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swPdSxpPuuY
another one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ArCY9q-nc

Bear in mind that this method works for birds with wood bellows... there are also singing birds with plastic bellows that have round discs, if yours is like that I found a source that has silicone replacement discs.

If you have wooden bellows like mine, remember that each of the three separate chambers needs to be covered individually using the above method...

[VintageTechnologies]

Thanks for documenting your repair! I also have a singing bird that needs a bellows repair, and this video gives me encouragement to open it up now that I know what is waiting inside. I think my parents probably bought it during the late 1970's, so I don't know yet whether its bellows are wood or plastic.

[fran604g]

Thanks for the pictorial, Curt! This tells me it's time for me to conquer the bellows on our Black Forest Cuckoo...

Fran