Ampico B Regulator Spring
By Craig Brougher
In a letter to Wayne Stanke, Bob Taylor mentioned that the Ampico B regulator spring has undoubtedly weakened over the years, and is designing a roll to test this feature. For those interested, Player Piano Co is now selling my Ampico B spring replacement. But I might also add that after having done a number of model Bs over the years, I have noticed a large difference between these springs, and attribute it to a factory adjustment, seeing as how some of them had never been broken into before (The old tubing was so brittle the pump could not have been moved, and no evidence of tampering in any other way). The number of coils of that spring vary widely, and I didn't care for their method of giving a piano a little more top end. They just cut out some of the coils --seemingly in the larger pianos-- and made the spring stiffer. I have also measured differences in spring wire gauge, varying usually between about .038 and .040.
There is absolutely no way that an old spring can have the correct tension after having been overstretched repeatedly for 60 years. Get a new one!
Craig B.
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(Message sent Thu 12 Sep 1996, 14:18:04 GMT, from time zone GMT.) |
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