Major roll cutting setbacks

Frederick Hodges (yeah, that Frederick, the pianist who played
at Amica23) played one of my rolls that I made for him on his
pristinely restored Steinway Duo-Art a few days ago and reported
tracking issues and sent me a video.

On inspection of that video I found that the roll was not only
mis-tracking, it wasn't even actuating the left tracking ear so
the tracking pneumatic was basically just pushing it around using
only the right tracking ear for any reference.

Frederick measured my roll and told me that the roll was 285 mm
[11.22 inches] width (as I set it to be assuming it would be fine)
and that the Klavier recut he also played for reference that day
(and it tracked fine) was 286 mm [11.26 inches] in width. I fear
that my one millimeter deviation has basically resulted in me
cutting 10 defective rolls.

I'm halting all roll cutting until I play my rolls cut thus far
on a restored player. My Aeolian with the dead tracking pneumatic
"isn't cutting it" these days. Once that is done and adjustments
are made I'll resume cutting. This should be dealt with in a week
or two.


Piotr Barcz
Upstate New York