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Charles Hind's Music Boxes
By Marc Kaufman

Larrys writes:

> How big was the cylinder?  Did he go for something like an 11" antique
> reproduction, or did he stick to the 6" modern Reuge style size?  I notice
> Reuge seems to have standardized on 3 tunes per cylinder, perhaps he was
> using their parts bin?

> What did he do for a spring-motor?  Did he wind his own, or buy it, and
> if the latter from where?  I realize you might not have all these details,
> but if you do, or have some guesses based on what you saw, I'd be very
> interested.

Gee.  I should have taken notes.  The cylinder was 12" long, and the comb
had about 110 teeth, with up to 6 teeth per note for trills.  The music
was classical, and arranged by Hind.

He built everything, even to cutting his own gears (and the worm).  He showed
his calculations in the talk.  I think we can expect a full description in
an upcoming MBSI Journal.

Regarding Sherline tools:  There is now a long bed Sherline which can take
a set of blocks to raise the chuck and tailstock over the ways.  This is
large enough for the average cylinder to be spun.  Hind showed his setup
for drilling, which was a rotary dividing table clamped to the headstock
wheel to set the angular position, and a drill in a flexible shaft tool
clamped to the back of the cross slide, which could be moved in to drill
a hole.  The cross slide was attached to a dial caliper, which gave him
linear position (and which is why he chose 0.1" as the tooth pitch).  He
made up a table of hole positions (by hand), and drilled from the table.

If there was any particular feature of Hind's presentation, it was that
he has a lot of patience.  It took him 2 years to make the movement.

By the way, he makes his living by making ocarinas and selling them through
music stores and at street fairs.

Marc



(Message sent Tue, 31 Oct 1995 22:29:56 -0700 , from time zone -0700.)

Key Words in Subject:  Boxes, Charles, Hind's, Music