•In the 1950's the US Army in Germany used standard 60-cycle Hammond organs in the chapels. Since the organs would be low in pitch and overheat on the 50 cycle current, a local firm had been hired to build conversion boxes which consisted of a 50 cycle motor driving a generator that was supposed to ...

•What Craig Brougher has described in 010826 MMD ["Unusual Chickering Ampico Console Piano"], I believe, is none other than the "Baby Ampico". There are several descriptions of this instrument in various books. The one that I found was in "Player Piano Treasury" by the late Harvey Roehl. On page 77 ...

•Back in the early 1970's, while attending college in Hollywood, I had the great pleasure of attending the very first rehearsal and taping of "All In The Family." It was a very enjoyable evening and it was a fun show. At the end producer Norman Lear came up before us and asked if we thought that the...

•Hi All While visiting a friend here in Arizona, I ran across a small Baldwin made piano, This is a stringed instrument, however, there is no soundboard, and the bridges appear to be designed for a electronic amplifier type pickup. it has a fairly conventional "drop" action. The tuning pins face the...

•The piano Andy describes is a Baldwin Electropiano, designed for use in a piano lab classroom setup. Fortunately, they did not make them very long. They were a bear to tune. The early ones used three-string unisons, later went to one string per note. The actions were not conventional spinet drop ac...

•I have weighed several players over the years and I believe that around 700 pounds will catch most upright players. I had one oak monstrosity that was almost 900 pounds. I have a Kimball in my shop now that weights 750 pounds. Here are the weights of several old uprights that were given to the Send...

•Below is the link to several videos I have listed on eBay. Each video has some sort of mechanical music in it. I collected these for my presentation in Chicago this year and now need to clear the shelves. I have listed each below with the mech. music instrument in the video in case anyone is intere...

•Dear friends of MMD, I may be only able to look, but any MMDers in Western Pennsylvania or nearby, with a pocket full of money, may be interested in an auction scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, 2003. I've copied some of the text from the web site at http://www.jayestatesales.com/ Cl...

•Hi All, Perhaps I'm just 'out of the loop' or 'behind the times' with regards to electronic tuning devices. Is there an electronic tuning device that tells the tuner when he has a unison correctly tuned? How about one that correctly interprets the overtones in the sub-bass register of a spinet pian...

•Hello everyone, I am going to be taking on a large project in the near future and need guidance from everyone out there. I want to build a band organ from the ground up and was wondering where I could get the spool frame and tracker bar for the band organ I want to build. Also, are there plans out ...

•Hi All, Preface: My customers are typically delighted when I move their piano way from the wall before starting any work. Most folks break out the vacuum cleaner and vacuum behind the piano while I'm setting up to tune. I can't recall the number of times I've heard, "Oh! That's where 'such and such...

•In regards to Kimball Player Organs -- Harold Whipps Sr. was correct in that there was the 500 series (which I have one), and the 1200 series (which I also have one, but it is a basket case). There was also the 700 series (which I had one many years ago, a model 702P). The Kimball organ rolls were ...

•Would the person who said he was going to send me a test roll, please contact me again? I have lost your email address, and I haven't received the test roll yet in the mail. Also a side note: I bought a 65-note spinet player on eBay and I just love it! While being transported home in my van, it dec...

•Hi, Kathy, The subject "Seek 65-note piano rolls" and the body of your email saying "I am wondering where I can find piano rolls for a 65-key player piano" with such little information, makes me suspicious that you are not looking for 65-note rolls for a 65-key player piano, but that you have a 65-...

•MMDers, I have embarked on a fairly long-term project of where necessary repairing, reboxing and relabeling my collection of over 4000 piano rolls. The bottleneck in this process is the testing, which necessitates carrying the rolls from my shop to the house to be played on one of my players. If th...

•Hi MMDers, I saw the posting, "Straube Player Piano Mechanism," and was reminded that I am "piano poor" right now (too many piano units). I have a complete "Straube" player piano for sale in St. Louis, Missouri, for $200.00 (you pick up). If interested contact me in the MMD manner. The piano comes ...

•I need to find out how rewind is activated on an electric Wurlitzer player. My test roll did not find which hole controls rewind, but it is not working all the time, so it may have missed it, or maybe a combination of holes is required. I would also like to know if a service manual is available. Th...

•Just move it to the new location, case closed! Perhaps a collection could be taken up to move and preserve it. Dale F. Rowe Bronx, NY P.S. What ever happened to the sign on the old Aeolian Factory building, visible from the Bruckner Blvd. Expressway in the Bronx? It was an Aeolian spinet player, or...

•I am looking for information on the speed control on my Kimball player piano. The knob became very hard to turn and when I could turn it, the speed remained the same -- as fast as it can go. How can I adjust the speed? Can this part be replaced? The piano is about 30 years old and is a spinet model...

•Assuming the pins are tight, I have always tried to 'set' the pins and deliver a reasonable 'blow' to the respective key. Setting the pins is to raise the string pitch slightly higher then ease the pin to the correct pitch. This takes the unwanted torsion from the pin shafting which can be on the v...