•Punched cards and elections brings to mind the name of John McTammany, player piano pioneer. When he was ousted from the mechanical music business, he turned his inventiveness to creating voting machines. Sadly, there are no details of them in his player piano books, but seeing that he was a great ...

•IBM Punch-card Mechanical Music Here's a form of punched-card mechanical music I don't recall being discussed. In 1981, the University of Hartford was just replacing their punch-card input, line-printer output IBM batch clunker mainframe computer with a new DEC VAX. The old computer took up one sid...

My interest in roll punch advance is mainly along the lines of practicality. I am interested in the historical aspect, to the extent that it provides useful information. I would like to scan rolls with a degree of precision that captures the information as accurately as it was punched. If it is poss...

•My experience with punched music is limited to the 20 note organ. I have only ordered music through Hal O'Rourke, who is the US agent for Melvyn Wright. According to the catalogs that I have, the music is priced by the length of the selection. Melvyn has worked it out so that a _full_ spool of musi...

•What is the punch size for Red Welte rolls? I am designing the punch and die set for Red Welte rolls, now that the 100 hole 9/inch version is working well in our perforator. It is tempting to choose a size based on the "Foot of Lahr" Welte used, but reasonable fractions of the "Foot of Lahr" don't ...

•Bob Billings wrote about punch sizes. If you look at enough original style "A" music rolls you will find that Capital used several diameters of punches up to 0.098 inch. If you are lucky enough to look at three original rolls, all with the same number and tune lineup, you will find mistakes. I have...

•I will punch out custom rolls from MIDI files for all the popular hand-cranked organ scales, including 20-note Raffin. I produce music rolls for the trade, and also for private individuals in single or multiple copies. Please see my web page for full details: http://www.buskerorgan.com/punching.htm...

•Can anyone punch 65-note piano rolls? I wish to make some rolls for my French accordion-jazz orchestrion. It uses 11.25" width music rolls with standard 65-note hole spacing, the same format as pin-end 65-note piano rolls. If I can get some tunes arranged or copied from old rolls, I'd like to find ...

•A simple Leabarjan roll punching and editing machine should not cost too much. Not sure how available these are. I started to make something similar last year. At this time of year, I usually work on getting new music prepared for my 20-note busker organ, so am in the process of cutting rolls. Surp...

•I have a punch and can make up the retaining washers for the Duo-Art valves [121229 MMD]. I make them out of polyethylene from old coffee can lids and they seem to work well. Nathan (Skip) Woodhull S-K Piano Lima, Ohio

•Hardened and ground precision punch pins suitable for perforating paper are made and sold as "hotwork ejector pins" by several firms, including Ross: Ross Tool Corp, 1000 Chestnut St, Warren, RI 02885 USA Royal: http://www.royalpins.com/products_rhx.html Regal: http://regalcomps.com/home.php MMDige...

•Ever since I started punching rolls (and now perforating them) paper has been a problem. Dry waxed paper is supplied 12 inches wide, and for two years I used paper 140 mm wide [5.51"] which I slit on a homemade machine. Now that I have the perforator that trims as it punches, I use 6" wide paper. I...

•When I was still punching John Smith organ rolls by hand, I needed a way to scan the finished roll so that I could edit it and then print out new masters for punching. The original masters from Melvyn Wright soon became tatters as they were used over and over again. I built a 20-note chest with pou...

•We've recently punched our first Stella 15.5" discs. It is an adaptation of 'Dill Pickles Rag', to our knowledge not previously available for Stella 15.5". Measurements were carefully made of antique Stella discs. However, we do not have a Stella box on which to play the new disc. We are looking fo...

•I've enjoyed punching out Duo-Art rolls on my Leabarjan for 35 years, off and on. Sometimes they are new recordings for me only, sometimes just a section of a roll that's warped or torn. Other times it's been originals I've given up hope of ever seeing recut. Just a few minutes ago while I was copy...

•All this discussion about punching rolls got me to thinking about other technologies that might be available. There are cutting machines designed to cut vinyl for different applications; sometimes used for signs, decoration, etc. These machines are similar to x-y plotters but use a swivel cutting k...

The recent discussions about organettes and roll punching have at last prompted me into writing rather than just reading. When I joined this list about 12 months ago, I enquired about MIDI or template systems for preparing rolls for a 14-note organette to entertain and educate some primary schoolkid...

•Re: Music Box Plays Self-Punched Paper Strips The manufacturer is actually Sankyo Seiki (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., and the part number for the mahogany finished music box, crank model (called Organette 20" on the bottom of the box), is OA-108-S-058. Mine came to me through the kind assistance of Andrew...

•Re: Seek 1/8"-Hole Hand Paper Punch. I don't know if they are going to have what you want, but McMaster Carr has a very good easy navigating web site at http://www.mcmaster.com/ Tommy Forney

•I'm pretty sure that's the punch end of an automatic centre punch, but not quite the same pattern as illustrated at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_center_punch Tom Lawton