Greetings from Oregon and the Great Northwest.  I've been in the player
piano restoration business for almost forty years and, like many of
you, have seen a lot of player pianos.  Most of them, of course, were
the regular player types, some  more regular than others.  I've seen
quite a few odd ones too; some of those I wish I hadn't seen.

Fast forward to last week.  I just picked up one that's a new one on
me.  Funny thing is, it looks like something I should have seen by now,
but haven't.  I'm hoping that one of you experts might know what it is.

The piano is a 1930's Kimball bungalow type.  Underneath the keyboard
is an original electric suction motor -- it never had a foot pump --
and what appears to be some sort of simple, compact expression system
(pouches and valves, not pneumatics).  The interesting feature is a
rectangular box with five knobs on the right side that seem to adjust
spring tension on some flap  valves.  The top stack appears to be
normal, except the 88-note tracker bar has some extra holes: five
vertically elongated holes on each end of the eighty-eight.  These
holes are connected to manual expression buttons on the keybed control
panel and the expression unit underneath.

I am in the process of restoring it and would like to know:

    a. What is it?
    b. Does anybody have tubing diagrams and adjusting specs for it?
    c. Are there any rolls out available for it?  (Customer has  none)

Ken Marts
Ken Marts Pianos