•Steve Bradley's email address is apparently incorrect so I'll direct the reply here: I have an orphaned Ampico drawer.

•Howdy! I have two rolls on which the box claims "A Christmas Eve Fantasy - Greetings 1928". The boxes are different from each other but the labels are identical. However, the rolls inside are not the same. roll 1: Adeste Fideles, O Holy Night, O Tannenbaum roll 2: 5148 Christmas recording -- Hark! ...

•Hi group, In answer to John W. Miller's question about Ampico Christmas rolls, I have listed below the rolls in my collection. It seems to me that several years ago someone wrote an article for the AMICA Bulletin covering these rolls. I can't remember who or when. Boxes with green boughs and red ri...

•After 15 years of putting it off, I'm rebuilding my Ampico. It's the first time I'm working on an Ampico so when I started to work on it, I read all the material available and familiarized myself with the components. After disassembly, I double checked my component list and found three missing part...

•You failed to mention the year and make of your Ampico. Every year that Ampicos were manufactured, Ampico made a few changes including removal or a slight difference in design of parts. My own Ampico has no expression cutoff block and no primary valves. I am not sure what you mean by "crash pneumat...

•Eliyahu Shahar wrote about missing Ampico parts. Unless you can find screw holes where the parts were removed, I suspect this is a piano from the late period after the merger. They were running out of shelved Ampico Parts. Often I find them missing all these parts but the pianos usually have a B dr...

•Hi again, I've been out sick the last two days so I haven't had the strength to answer email. In answer to the questions of some, it's a fairly early Ampico A in a 1923 Knabe grand. I measured the case to be 5' 10" but the literature tells me that they were only available in 5' 4" and 5' 8". I may ...

•Mr. Bullock questions the reason, and detail of connection for a 1" x 1" pneumatic mounted on the top side of the so-called spring pneumatic attached to the main expression valve in some Ampico expression units. ["Enigmatic Pneumatics On Some Ampico A Actions", 020709 MMDigest] The purpose of this ...

•In "Enigmatic Pneumatics On Some Ampico A Actions", MMD 02.07.09, D.L. Bullock writes: > I have two Ampicos with a 1" x 1" pneumatic mounted on the top side > of the so-called spring pneumatic attached to the main expression > valve. I need to know what they connect to since the tubing > was toast ...

•Re "Enigmatic Pneumatics On Some Ampico A Actions" The strange little 1" square pneumatics which D.L. Bullock refers to on a few of his Ampico spring pneumatic mechanisms is a loud pedal compensator. They try to oppose the spring pneumatic, equivalent to a bellows that measured about 1/2" square. T...

•Greetings from soggy, sunny Florida. The small 1" pneumatics to which you refer are connected to the sustain valve via the tracker size "T". Their purpose is to slightly reduce the value of the spring pneumatic while the dampers are lifted. The idea is that when the dampers lift there is less weigh...

•I have rebuilt a couple of Ampico Players with these little pneumatics. They were only on Model "A" systems from 1927 and 1928. They were called a sustaining pedal compensator, and they are mounted on top of the bass and treble spring pneumatics and are actuated directly from the Sustaining Pedal v...

•Hello D.L. and MMDers: I think this pneumatic compensates for the slightly increased playing volume when the dampers are lifted. You will find a description on page 159 of Art Reblitz's book, "Player Piano Servicing and Rebuilding," and in a picture on the following page (illus. 7-4). Regards John ...

•Regarding the Ampico with the 1"x1" pneumatics. Dr. Hickman found that when the sustain pedal is on, a player piano plays louder than it does when the sustain is off. I think we can understand this by observing that when the pedal is on, all the strings are resonating freely. When the pedal is off...

•Re "Enigmatic Pneumatics In Late Ampico A Actions" The little pneumatics should be tubed to the sustaining pedal valves. When the sustain pneumatic lifts the dampers off the strings, there is less weight (in a grand) or spring tension (in a vertical) counteracting the force of the stack pneumatics ...

•Now that Eliyahu Shahar has listed more information about his piano, I would like to submit my theory on the missing parts. Typically a 1923 Knabe Ampico would have an expression cutout and a pump reservoir. Most often the cutout is mounted on the bottom of the primary valve chest. There will be no...

•Wow, thanks, folks. I have gotten so many nice notes from folks reminding me of the purpose of those little pneumatics. I even got a phone call from my old friend Bill Flynt. Great to hear from him and all of you. I knew I could probe this mine of information and strike gold fairly quickly. I reali...

•I'd like to clarify my previous letter here to say that the degree of loud pedal compensation was equivalent to subtracting 1/2" sq total from the spring pneumatic. This is because of the way in which it is hinged and then connected to the spring pneumatic. The reason for the compensation was that ...

•Actually, the Ampico B did not use sustain pedal compensation. That was used only for a time in the 1927-28 Ampicos, and I suspect it was put there, not by Dr. Hickman who may have brought the "idea" to Stoddard's attention, but undoubtedly by Charles Stoddard. Robbie wrote: >[ In 1927 Ampico also ...

•I thought I would add a few comments to current discussions. The first thing is that I have never understood how, starting in 1913, Duo-Art could use the loudness difference between the dampers on or off as the foundation for all volume levels, while Ampico didn't discover it made a difference unti...