Pleased to meet you!

I'm Jim Cook, living in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Just to make things
confusing, note I'm not to be confused with the other Jim Cook living Newton,
Mass. introduced here a couple months ago.  Hopkinton is where the Boston
Marathon starts every year, for those of you wanting a reference.

My involvement with this list is from player pianos, which are mostly a
hobby.  By day I am a software engineer. I became interested in pianos
because of my neighbor, Charles Jackson, who lives across the street with his
family and shop building out front. Charles moves, tunes, and rebuilds pianos
of all sorts professionally. He's "Charlie the Tuner".  (That's his name, not
mine).

My exposure over the last nine years came from hanging around Charlie's shop,
asking questions, and occasionally helping out with a project. My major
involvement started with helping to rebuild a couple pianos incorporating
Standard (double valve stack) player mechanisms. This is also Charlie's
sneaky way of trying to convince me to quit "the shakey computer business"
for a nice stable career in pianos.

A few years ago, I executed a bachelor's thesis project involving teaching a
Macintosh to "play" player piano rolls optically.

More recently, I started a couple new projects. The first is rebuilding a
Marshall & Wendell Ampico A grand, started while I was unemployed (I'm back
to work now).  It's all in pieces, with the case one place to be refinished
and the player action up at Bob Hunt's in Maine for rebuilding. (Bob is
president of the New England AMICA chapter), and me trying to reproduce the
decal on my computer.

The second project is rebuilding a 1904 Mason & Hamlin BB 7' Grand
(non-player) for my own personal use. It's actually quite educational to live
next to a piano shop. You get to try out a wide range of piano brands and
sizes: Hallet-Davis, Steinway, Marshall & Wendell, Foster, Ivers & Pond,
Henry Miller, Chickering, Mason & Hamlin, Sohmer, Gulbransen, etc. The Mason
& Hamlin BB is the one that I personally feel has the best keyboard feel,
clarity of tone, and quality of construction.

I've spent the last several weeks reading all this back issues of this
digest, graciously forwarded to me by Jody. I've enjoyed this quite a bit,
including the material on organs and music boxes. The variety is what keeps
it interesting, and the depth of knowledge is what can make it a challenge.

I hope to forward some of my own questions, but as they say on the net, I
also hope give as much as I take.

FYI: Other hobbies include cellering fine wine, model rocketry
(testing/certifying model rocket motors), desktop publishing, and water
sports (my house is on a lake).

-Jim¶
Hopkinton, Mass.