Attached find my first entry for the MMD.  I saved it as a *.txt
file.  Is this the correct way to send you the info?  Let me know.
Thanks, Joel

 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ It's almost perfect, Joel, and it offers me the opportunity to
 [ talk a little about sending letters to MMD.  The first step is
 [ to save the document as a text-only file (*.txt), but then the
 [ method of encoding for transmission must be selected.
 [
 [> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
 [
 [ This statement appears in the e-mail header, and tells the recipient
 [ to expect US-ASCII codes in the *e-mail* text.  It is usually
 [ selected in the "Preferences" portion of your e-mail program.
 [ In contrast,
 [
 [> Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable
 [
 [ indicates that the *attachment* uses QP (quoted printable)
 [ encoding.  It is also usually selected in the "Preferences" portion
 [ of your e-mail program.  The result looks like this before I fix it:
 [
 [> My name is Joel Cluskey and I am a new subscriber to MMD.  Firs=
 [> t, a little about myself.  I was born and raised in Peoria, Ill=
 [> inois. I am a practicing architect, graduated from the Universi=
 [
 [ QP encoding uses the equal sign (=) to break the line of text, and
 [ so I must do a little editing on the attachment.
 [
 [ The method I prefer is ISO-8859-1 encoding (or US-ASCII):
 [
 [> Content-transfer-encoding: ISO-8859-1
 [
 [ Attachments encoded with HTML are a huge amount of work to edit.
 [ See the letter, below, from Hans van Oost.
 [
 [ -- Robbie


Content-type: text/plain; name="INTROD~1.TXT"
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable  [ but I've edited it now. ]


Hello:  My name is Joel Cluskey and I am a new subscriber to MMD.
First, a little about myself.  I was born and raised in Peoria,
Illinois.  I am a practicing architect, graduated from the University
of Illinois 1984, and am still trying to decide what I want to be when
I grow up!  I now live in Pittsburgh, PA, childhood home of my wife,
with our two children.  Prior to that I lived in Princeton/Trenton, NJ.

When in high school, I worked for a short while with an organ builder,
Mr. Jack Becker, in Peoria while re-constructing a Wicks 35-rank pipe
organ in our church.  Since then I have had a great fascination for
musical instruments and have "restored" several reed organs and a
melodeon.  While living in Paris for a year studying architecture,
I couldn't get enough of street organ grinders, and I bought their
recordings whenever I could.

About a year and a half ago, I had the opportunity to purchase from an
elderly neighbor a Kelsworth, New York (#135403) player upright with
Simplex three tier player action (#169963/40) and about 70 rolls (all
pre 1930) for $225.00.  I had the piano inspected prior to the purchase
by a helpful piano technician, Mr. Randy Mangus of  Wheeling WV who
told me that from what he could tell, both the piano and the player
action were a good candidates for restoration.

The case was in exceptional condition.  My neighbor explained that the
piano had been in her family since she was a child but had not played
in probably 30 years.  Part of the purchase deal was a promise on my
part to make a recording of her favorite rolls when I had it completed.
Well, armed with the Reblitz books I went to work.

One and one half years later, it is complete.  As far as I can tell,
I did everything "by the book".  Mr. Mangus was kind enough to provide
counsel when needed and told me that, although he had never personally
restored a Simplex action, I had done an impressive job for my first
piano

In the future I would like to list some specific questions about the
restoration and note some observations that I made while trying to
complete this restoration.  If anyone could help me identify the piano
manufacture date or knows something about this particular instrument,
I would appreciate it if they would let me know.  Thanks for your time.

Joel Cluskey

 [ Welcome to MMD, Joel.  I'm glad that you had an enjoyable time
 [ fixing the piano.  Did the former owner enjoy the recordings?
 [ For further reading about the Simplex action check the MMD
 [ Archives at our web site, and also the articles which John
 [ Tuttle has placed at his Player-Care site.  (See his letter
 [ below.)  Please write again with your observations and questions.
 [ -- Robbie