Forwarded Message:

• From: slharder@center.iastate.e To: ALL                       Orig: MBNET
 Subj: Info on & Worth of Player Area: 0-sic.makers.piano      Date: 01/16/96
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•
I've recently been doing some work (when in doubt, do no harm) getting a player
baby grand working again.  It's been in our family for 30 years and my wife's
family knew
the original owner.

It's a Kimball with a Motor Player Corp Electora Reproducer (Recordo) player.
I'm not sure who actually made the stack and spool box.

Piano doesn't stay in tune well and could use new bass strings, hammers, but
in general is a nice instrument.

Player action was rebuilt in late '60s so all I've really had to do is replace
tubing.  Now that I've got it 'playing' again I'm fired up enough so I'll
probably go ahead and rebuild the stack as it's still leaky even after cleaning
up all the leaky tracker tubing.

Spool box is nice, lifts off easily with tubing disconnects at the outer ends, auto
tracking, auto replay/reroll, auto shutoff.

Expression mechanism consists of black box that is a measured controlled
bleed at four levels.  The tubing schematic I have from Player Piano Co
pretty much matches what a Recordo test roll expects a piano to have.
P,MF,F,FF,sustain, BassPP, TreblePP.

Question #1 - what's the piano worth (I'm just curious, we're going to have it
around for a while [insurance])?

Question #2 - I don't have any actual Recordo rolls, so I'm interested in how
effective they really were.

Also interested in any other general info you may have.  I've got a
couple of local
player enthusiasts, but I'm the only 'Internet'er.

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Steve & Tish Harder¶
Ames, IA

slharder@center.iastate.edu¶
http://www.netins.net/showcase/wwwisc¶
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