I read with great interest Craig Brougher's posting about the PPCo
Orchestrion Spool Frames and I can add an "Amen!" to all of his
comments.

I had a route of coin operated player pianos.  At first, when I built
them, I used whatever spool frames I could find.  Many of them were
converted from Autotypist roll frames.  Then I discovered the "new and
improved" PPCo frame.  I bought enough of them for all of our pianos
and converted the existing pianos, often right on location.  After that
every piano we built had one.

Two pianos come to mind which were in the same location for 13 years.
It was a high volume tourist location and the pianos ran from opening
to closing.  Those PPCo roll frames _never_ gave a problem.  The fast
rewind was a plus because we did not have accumulators on the pianos,
so people would drop in quarters during rewind, thus losing a play.
Eventually the piano actions beat themselves to pieces, and we replaced
the piano with others.  The pianos were junked, but not the spool
frames!

Once a rodent took a liking to the paper on the roll and the frame
malfunctioned, but it was the roll and not the mechanism.  Those
roll frames are work horses and I still have two new ones in their boxes
that I will not part with.  Yes, the plastic pouches caused problems,
but only in one piano.

If you want a piece of equipment that will stand the test of time,
then Craig's beautifully designed frame will work just like the pink
bunny and ... keep going, and going and going!

My two cents.

Ed Gaida