In the 13.05.14 MMDigest, Larry Schuette asks about building a
"transparent player action model".

I have been involved with player piano rebuilding since the decade
of the 1960s (I did my first "Standard" player in the summer of 1965).
Many, many years ago, I inherited from an elderly technician's widow
a demonstration device, clearly built by Aeolian in perhaps the
mid-'teens'.  This was similar in many respects, to the action models
which most major piano builders made available to salesmen and dealers.
(Steinway and Yamaha still offer these piano action models, typically
one note, hammer, whippen, damper, etc. to show how the action
functions).

The Aeolian model was mounted on a small base.  It had a three note
"tracker bar", three-tier action (one "note" per tier) with the valve
covers "windowed" with clear, transparent, celluloid material, such
that you could actually see the pouch and valve in operation.  It was
powered by a small, three-bellows hand-cranked "pump" to supply the
vacuum, with a small reservoir bellows.  The whole thing was perhaps
fifteen or sixteen inches high.  I have a hunch that other player
action builders offered similar devices to their salespeople.

It would not be difficult to make a similar demonstration device.  The
real problem lies in the fact that there were so many different designs
of pneumatic player action.  "Standard" had their design (both double-
and single-valve configuration);  "Simplex" (Worcester, Massachusetts)
-- the second most common player action found in the New England area
-- had a very different design.  Cable, Gulbransen, Kranich & Bach,
Amphion, etc., etc., etc.  Which model would you choose to demonstrate?

Still, I think it would be a fun project;  perhaps it would be better
to make the model "larger than life" to show the actual functioning of
the basic components: the pouch, valve, pneumatic and finger, which are
essentially common to all player action designs.

Tom Ahearn