Mark Widmer asked about building a replacement pump assembly for a 1925
Starck with Simplex player action).

I have several bellows assemblies from Simplex players that I acquired
from a piano tuner who had removed them long ago from their original
hosts.  If you will take some photographs of what you have left in your
piano, perhaps I can supply you with the missing parts.  There was
variation in the size of the bellows, and also the location of the motor
governor changed over the years.

Like most folks who have this preservation bug, I can't stand to throw
anything out. I would be most happy to have one less item to store
though!

Straight-on photographs can be scaled to provide a fairly good start on
laying out non-original parts to be retrofitted into a player.
Accurately measure some part which can be used as a scale to measure
other parts of the photo.

The Simplex player mechanism is an excellent working system and
reasonably easy to rebuild. If you are thorough in your rebuilding and if
the necessary piano repairs and tuning are done, you won't have to
apologize to anyone for your piano.

Bob Hunt¶
optimist@cybertours.com