Re: Newsgroup or Listgroup and Re: Making Music Box Cylinders and Seeking Collections and Museums to Visit
By Larry Smith
Re: Newsgroup
Jody noted to me in email that he felt moderation of the list was needed to keep it a pleasant place, and I quite agree. I certainly don't think there is any hurry about changing this arrangement, after all, I just got here. But others will follow, and if and when people feel a newsgroup is needed, I just wanted folks to know I could lend a hand. I would strongly urge the list _not_ be dismantled just because we have a newsgroup. If we ever do want a newsgroup, we'd want to gateway the list and moderate the newsgroup-to-list traffic. The newsgroup is primarily a tool for visibility, we simply decide whether we want and when. For my part, the offer will remain open as long as I'm around. I've been through the ringer, and it's not a lot of work if you do it right.
Re: Cylinders
The fellow who had an immediate need for a cylinder with a special tune is Peter Smakula. I am sort of "generically" in- terested, since someday I'd like to try my hand at building a good-sounding box from a standing start, and since I'd also like to learn how to restore the things, since boxes that need it are much cheaper (but become less so when Mr. Konvalinka at the Musical Wonder House gets his hands on them =).
A NG machine tool could surely do the job, especially with a boost from Jody's midi converter, but I don't have access to one, nor are they cheap enough to seriously consider buying one unless I'm going to make enough cylinders to jolly well flood the market. Also, I think it might be overkill - NG tools are designed to be repeatably accurate - but pinholes would be drilled in sequence, and the tool would never have to backtrack and accurately reposi- tion on a previously drilled hole. I've been wondering if all that is needed for computerized drilling wouldn't be just a jig and a couple of stepper motors geared way down.
A traditional cylinder would be metal, with a cement/resin core and metal pins. To place the pins, we must pre-drill the holes, then place the pins. A NG tool could drill the holes, but I'm not sure one can place pins, nor what the job would cost (anyone with figures?) and a simple jig-and-stepper-motors arrangement could drill the holes, but would not be repeatable enough to reposition for the pin insertion, which makes that process a nice, 19th century exercise in patience and handwork. Either way, the result is a good reproduction of a 19th century musical box cylinder.
I came up with the clay idea trying to figure out how to get the pins placed automatically, so the cylinder would be faster and cheaper to make. According to the information I've read about the new polymer clays, shrinkage and expansion are less of a problem than with traditional fired clay. Basically, you would just layer on the clay, then set the pins directly into it in one pass, perhaps with a simple jig-and-stepper-motor system, which would be cheap, and then bake it in an oven for half an hour. Viola! A nice modern version of the cylinder idea, available in eight designer colors. =)
Now, I don't _know_ that the above will result in accurate enough placement - and I'd like to hear some ideas along this line. I also don't _know_ that the clay _won't_ have a phase-change problem of some sort and crack the surface of the cylinder - which would certainly ruin it, since the crack will throw the relationships off. It might be possible to find another material that could do the job, or maybe we could allow for the shrinkage, perhaps by slotting the cylinder core so the clay could compress it slightly without cracking.
If anyone else has any ideas - even seemingly harebrained ones, they should add them to the mix. Brainstorming is the best way to pick and choose viable new ideas, since new ideas are almost always made from bit and pieces of other ideas. What would be a good, inexpensive way to make a prickly cylinder without taking forever or using expensive machin- ery.
Questions:
The book "Music Boxes" mentions a number of collections that I've been trying to see around New England, and one of them is the American Museum of Mechanical Music in East Hampton, Connecticut. The phone com- pany denies any such place exists. Does anyone know what kinds of things they have in their collection and where it might have gotten to?
My father saw an awesome museum of orchestrions and other very sophisticated automatic instruments, including an automatic banjo and violen, from the height of the automatic music era, in a museum in North Carolina. He doesn't recall the name, and the museum has since closed and moved, no one I've talked to knows where. Does anyone know what museum this was or have a clue where it might have gotten to?
regards,
Larry Smith |
(Message sent Mon 7 Aug 1995, 14:48:23 GMT, from time zone GMT-0400.) |
| Key Words in Subject:
Box, Collections, Cylinders, Listgroup, Making, Museums, Music, Newsgroup, or, Seeking, Visit |
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