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Baldwin Manualo With 65/88-note Tracker Bar
By Bernt Damm

Hello!  I own a Hamilton (by Baldwin) Manualo.  It is 65/88 note and
has no roll-tracker mechanism except the thumbscrew.  What I write
next is from memory because the piano is in my parent's house in South
Africa and I had to leave it behind when I moved to Australia some
five years ago.

The Manualo action stack is 3-tier and the pneumatics are back-to-front,
with wooden fingers at the hinge side activating the keys.  The stack
removes with just two large wing nuts and there is only one tube to remove
on the roll motor.  The pedal bellows are on a wide box mounted under
the keybed and they open downwards with the equalizer opening upwards.

It is a really cool old player and it never really bothered me much that 
there was no tracking mechanism.  In fact, one can play shredded rolls
without any problems.  The tracker bar does not operate any pedals.

The right spoolframe pin has a cap that can be removed to convert to
the receptacle for 65-note rolls.  The left one works for both as is.

The changeover between 65- and 88-note systems is done by a lever in
the top centre of the spoolbox that moves from left to right.  It moves
the centre block of a unit consisting of three sandwiched and graphited
wooden blocks.  The outside ones have elbows and pipes connected to them
and the centre one has channels routed and as it moves, the channels
change the connections to the pneumatics.

If you need to know more, please let me know.

Kind regards,
Bernt Damm
Sydney

 [ After immigrating to Australia, Bernt has worked restoring vehicles
 [ and repairing antique clocks, but he says will soon resume working
 [ on pneumatic player pianos (which I think is his first love ;-).
 [ -- Robbie


(Message sent Sat 20 Mar 2010, 07:57:53 GMT, from time zone GMT+1100.)

Key Words in Subject:  65/88-note, Baldwin, Bar, Manualo, Tracker

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