The first grand I ever owned had exactly the type of "unit" drawer
construction that Jason Klinger describes in the 080404 Digest.  Al-
though it did happen to be a Recordo, it was an "Auto-Deluxe" Recordo,
manufactured by the Auto Pneumatic Action Company, New York (Standard,
Welte Licensee).  In fact, the five-step expression regu lator is
exactly the knife valve/tunnel pneumatic arrangement found on the
Licensee.  There's only one of them, and the knife position is con-
trolled by four collapsing pneumatics against a common crank wire.  It
seems to have nothing in common with the Simplex, except that the link-
age between the drawer and key poppets looks to be virtually identical.
My Howard Auto-Deluxe Recordo is still in the family, about an hour
away, if Jason or anyone else would like measurements or pictures.

There is an excellent description, including a bottom view of the piano
and a scale elevation of the drawer and linkage, in a reprint entitled
"Simplex Reproducing Player Actions," reprinted by Vestal Press.  I
don’t know how long I've had it and I can't find it in any current
catalog.  But I can provide details from the booklet, if it is unavail-
able.  According to the literature, the "unitary structure's" selling
points include:

--"The complete player mechanism...is contained in a complete, unitary
drawer structure, slidably mounted beneath the key-bed of the piano,
and can be removed from the piano in 30 seconds."

--"There is a complete absence of folding and bending rubber tubes, a
feature so objectionable in many reproducing grand pianos."

--"The contact between the player action in the drawer and the piano
action in the piano is maintained by special heat-treated aluminum
roller wires, which are as light as a feather, and as strong as steel."

On my piano, the mechanism seemed to function best when the fingers
from the pneumatics were directly under the short piano action poppets.
This would minimize fore/aft racking of the assembly and friction on
the bushed pivots of the roller wires.  Coincidentally or not, this was
a position with the drawer open only enough for the control levers and
their nameplates to be just accessible and visible beneath the keybed.
Consistency of lost motion adjustments also depends upon the drawer
rails and rollers having no play and being exactly parallel to the
wires.  Since there was always a slight variation depending upon drawer
position, I used this neutral spot in the drawer's travel as the basis
for making these adjustments.

While I suppose this system did introduce some extra friction and in-
ertia into the system and also several extra cloth wear points which
hastened things running out of adjustment, it certainly was handy to
disconnect one motor hose, about ten expression and pedal control tubes
on a junction block, and a power plug to completely drop the drawer for
service and moving.

Hope this little bit of information helps.

David V. Anderson, RPT
Waukesha, WI