Hi Everybody.  I read with great interest John Tuttle's comments on
tight piano roll spools in MMD 010928.  I agree entirely.  I repair
lots of rolls and whenever the spool is too tight, there will be
edge damage.

If the left-hand spool is loose enough to be pulled out a little,
I unwind the roll completely.  Then I cut a piece of soft string, a
couple of millimeters in diameter, that just fits around the pulled-out
spool end, and glue the cut ends of the string together with a tiny dab
of the world-famous #320 Player Piano Glue.  When the glue is dry,
I push the spool end back in against the string.  This achieves a
slightly wider spool and the string can be removed if this turns out
to be bad practice.

Does the roll wander more?  Not in my experience, but I always tap the
right-hand end of a roll into my hand a couple of times after playing
it, to throw all the turns of paper towards the right.  Warning; don't
try this with a pin-end roll, folks.  It hurts!

Many Aeolian rolls have an moveable left-hand spool end whose movement
is restricted by a steel pin through the cardboard core, which moves
inside an elongated hole.  If this arrangement is accessible (it means
taking the paper off the spool), a short length of matchstick can be
popped into one end of the hole.  This stops the spool end from closing
up so tightly, and is also a reversible adjustment.  Getting the paper
off a roll spool can be done, with an iron and a wet cotton cloth, but
it requires almost infinite patience.

John Philips, in Hobart, Tasmania