[ Editors note:
 [
 [ For 15 years Richard and Janet Tonnesen have operated Custom Music
 [ Rolls in Richardson, Texas.  They have a well-deserved reputation
 [ for making quality piano rolls, and for doing the job as promised
 [ and on-time.  I asked Richard for this article.
 [
 [ Robbie Rhodes

> Richard,
>
> Imagine that some wealthy benefactor gave you a giant laser printer,
> all ready to use to put the words nicely on the edge of the roll.
> In other words, the capital investment is not a problem.
>
> What would be the added cost to your customers for the set-up and
> recurring costs to make 5 copies or so from an old word roll?
> (At least you don't need "drying space" like John Malone does for
> the stenciled words.)


I'm hoping the "wealthy benefactor" has deep pockets, because I would also
need more floor space for the extra equipment!  :)

I have never seriously considered adding words to our rolls because it
would be too hard.  It would be very labor-intensive to enter each word
or syllable in just the right place in the roll file, then position the
punched roll in the printer, print it, and reroll it (again) when the
printing is done.  Some rolls would be damaged by the extra handling.
Proof copies would need extra proofreading to see that everything was
spelled right and was in the right place.  The roll editing program would
need modification to add words, to move words around, and to correct
spelling on existing text.

How many hours would it take to do all the steps to put words on five
rolls?  I can imagine two hours under favorable circumstances, or perhaps
eight hours when things go wrong.  I don't think I would want to try it
for less than $200, and I don't think many customers would want to pay an
extra $40 per roll to get the words printed on the roll.

A few of our customers did add words to a few rolls, but I think the
effort was too much for use on anything but rolls of special interest.
More commonly, a separate sheet is provided with the words and syllables
spread out as in sheet music.  This is not as good as having the words
on the roll, but I think it is a reasonable compromise for low-volume
production.  At least the words are available, and a really dedicated
customer could copy the words to the roll by hand.

If the customer has the original roll, as is the case in this example,
the customer can lay the new roll over the original and copy the words by
hand.  You don't get the machine printed look, but you do get the words
in the right place on the roll.  This takes about half an hour per copy.

Richard Tonnesen