•A crack at the bridge will not affect tuning stability but will cause false beats from allowing the pin to vibrate, a vibrato effect which is most annoying. CA glue can be applied cautiously while the piano is on its back. Thin viscosity will seep in and do the trick, and a medium could be used fol...

•Hi Everyone, All I can say regarding any of Ragtime Automatic Music Company's (R.A.M.) systems that were installed 12 years ago or older is to replace all of the pneumatics, because all of the values are Perflex and the original casing is aluminum. Ken Calkins, the owner of Ragtime (http://www.ragt...

•I trust the pins are the same diameter as the originals when measured with a micrometer. To achieve a tight fit in the rails, swab the holes with either epoxy or CA glue and let cure. Reaming the hole with a drill bit afterward may be necessary to get a proper fit. Care must be taken to maintain th...

•I can identify with Benjamin Haass's problem with regards to installing new key pins in a unit that had very rusty key pins. I had a similar problem when I rebuilt an old Kohler & Campbell 'Tom Thumb' upright that had been stored in a boiler room for 15 years. Ouch! The center rail pins can be glue...

•Several months ago I purchased a Gem roller organ on eBay auction. After examining the thing and trying to play a couple of the rollers that came with it, I have determined that it needs some work. My question is where to start! The main problem is that it doesn't develop enough suction. The reserv...

•Greetings Matthew, Welcome to a great hobby. Low vacuum on your Gem Roller Organ could be from any one of a number of causes. Generally the best course of action is to do a complete rebuild of the organ. While you are recovering the vacuum reservoir you can look for any cracks in the wood that woul...

•If you are new to mechanical musical devices, and have not recovered bellows, I suggest you hire the work done by a professional who is experienced in this type of work. It is not a big job. Old bellows material can look perfectly good, yet be full of small holes. I am sure that the pads covering t...

•Matthew, In a normal Gem Roller Organ, there are three common areas which may be leaking, contributing to a loss of vacuum. The most common that I've seen is the bellows cloth which covers both the bottom bellows (exhauster) and the top reservoir. Look for any places where the cloth has become brit...

•I just rebuilt my first Concert Roller Organ about one month ago. I had to replace all of the pneumatic cloth and valves. The organ seemed to be original and never rebuilt. What surprised me was that the vacuum reservoir valve flaps were covered using pneumatic cloth, rather than leather. The inter...

•Following the thread on metals used in Polyphon disks, at an auction I purchased a portable 9" Polyphon along with a dozen disks which had been nicely wrapped in paper and taped up securely. The auctioneer assured us there were 12 disks and they'd been wrapped for protection. Can you see what's com...

•Pete, Although I've not seen them all(!), I've seen quite a few Roller Organs, and suspect that your organ had been rebuilt before. All those I've seen which I deemed "original" used leather flaps, both inside and out, and those flaps were attached with a single dab of glue at each end of the flaps...

•-- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD -- 1. Does anyone know what happened to the Deagan Carillon which was installed in the tower of the Hall of Science at the 1933-34 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago? 2. Robert Hoffswell, who does business as Orion Restorations, has an ope...

•Norm Gibson wrote in 020824 MMDigest: > I have a small German single singing bird in a cage in need > of new rubber bellows. Can anyone lead me to a source? Black Forest Imports at http://www.blackforestimports.com/ has the parts for these unique mechanics. They have a large stock of parts for othe...

•In recent weeks, I have been happily transferring the content of old 8-track tape cartridges over to CDs, using Cool Edit Pro and an old 8-track player I have, that up to now has been working just fine. But this evening, the player ate a tape. Now I have an 8-track cassette with about two feet of t...

•> Am I trying to do something akin to trying to stuff toothpaste back > into the tube? Is there a way of recovering 8-track tapes after such > a discouraging event? Hoo, boy! (That's English for "Oy, vey!") It's very unlikely that your tape machine is at fault. It never hurts to open things up, cle...

•Hi all, Back in the 8-track tape days my folks used to sell 8-track cartridges door to door, to music stores, and at flea markets, to help make the ends meet. The tape coming out of the cartridge was a common problem for some customers. Fortunately the solution is easy. It's weird, but the way that...

•Terry, Firstly, take one Valium or other nerve calming prescription, send the dog, wife and impressionable young children out for the day, clear the table and take a deep breath -- then get stuck in..... The tape cartridges are in two parts and are (a) screwed together, or (b) clipped together with...

•It's probably been more than 25 years since I fooled around with 8-track tape cartridges, but I still remember a few things. I actually had an 8-track tape recorder, and used to record music so my dad could listen in his car while driving to work. Clean the capstan roller in the tape deck. Sometime...

•Hi Terry, As to repairing an 8-track tape, you will have to do what l always do. Open the cartridge and start pulling out the tape, being exceptionally careful as you get toward the center of the feed. Once this is done, re-thread the tape, but leave a tail of the tape out of the center, so it can ...

•I recall that an 8-track player pulls the tape out of the center of the reel of tape, and puts it back on the outer rim of the reel. Thus, if you pull one inch of tape out of the center, the reel should wind up two or three inches back on, due to the ratio of diameters. So I would say that if the t...