•I can't resist responding to the discussion of the use of hot glue in restoration work. To restore something, especially a mechanical musical instrument, is to make it like it was when it was new. It does not mean to "improve it", or for that matter to alter it in any way. Hot glue has characterist...

•Spencer Chase did stick his neck out with his posting on 030314. But I, for one, believe there is merit to his posting. To digress, the rebuilding of pneumatic instruments has been plagued with experimentation with faulty new materials. The miracle pouch material, Perflex, was tried and seemed to b...

•In MMD 03.04.23 Ian Griggs from Sydney is looking for a tracker bar pump for his player piano. I would like to warn people about the use of the tracker bar pump on some of the newer 1970 and later players. I am speaking primarily about the newer players like Universal, which used Perflex or similar...

•Hi, fellow player folks. I bought a Magic Organ Player on eBay a few months ago, remembering them from electronic organ shows long ago. The unit is labeled variously "Organmatic" or "Magic Organ Player". It was built in the 1970s, I believe; at least I recall seeing one wired to an electronic organ...

•Ken Vaughn just sent pictures of the player device atop his Wurlitzer electronic organ and it appears to be virtually identical to the "Magic Organ - Organmatic" player I just saved from the scrap heap. [ See 031006 MMDigest, "Organ Roll Player by Automatic Music Corp." ] I certainly think his valv...

•Tony Greer's nostalgic post evoked some nostalgic memories of my own. In the 1970s I bought several items from a firm in Lubbock, Texas, no doubt the one he worked for, for a build-up "O" roll machine I built here in Rochester, New York. All of the items were beautifully done, especially the roll f...

•[ Fritz Gellerman wrote in 040813 MMDigest: >> I bought two roll players from MSI. One went into a Caliola >> knock-off that I built in 1976 and still have. Me, too. I bought one in 1977 and it is still working in my build-up. The only thing I did was get rid of the elastic band drive and substitut...

•[ Ref. 050817 MMDigest, "Roll Player Unit on Yamaha Electone Organ" ] Hi there! The player system Ryan Meldahl is asking about is the "Organmatic" player unit. The units were designed to be installed on almost any electronic organ, thus converting the organ into a player organ. The units were tubed...

•Here we go again. I am a major techie but I have been burned by all those previously disqualified products used for pneumatics, etc. I look at new stuff but I am the one they usually call when they wonder why their instrument does not work after some new product was used to rebuild it. We know that...

•In MMD 060521, Dave Jones asks, "Where can I get replacement pouches for a Universal player piano?" If you do find someone that makes these pouches, make sure that they use leather, and not the original synthetic Perflex material. It seems that 20 years is all you get out of the original pouches, a...

•Fellow MMDers, I don't know if the discussion on synthetic materials is still open, but here is my two cents worth. I didn't join in on the discussion earlier since it's difficult to defend most synthetic materials. I have redone enough player actions with gooey plastic tubing and Perflex pouches t...

•Hi All, Kim Bunker here from Playerpianos.com. Some of you are probably won- dering why I am even talking about Ragtime Automated Music systems. I have retro-fitted many of Ken's early systems with his new pneu- matics. The reason is that his early systems were like the "perflex" of the 1970's, the...

•Hi All, Yesterday I finished another web page about the modern Universal player piano. This one involves a troubleshooting technique that I've used for a number of years to determine if the pouches are bad. It's fairly well known in the player community that Perflex pouches are going to fail sooner...

•Hi All, Bill Maguire's posting [091107 MMDigest] about the Universal pneumatics stimulated me to ask the question; 'Are the pneumatics made out of wood or plastic?' The unit I'm currently working on has wooden pneumatics and the cloth is a blue color. It feels like Nylon and it's in great shape; ni...

•Hi, I've been waiting with bated breath for someone to comment on a synthetic substitute which looks like thin Tyvek. A friend who repairs cuckoo clocks gave me a piece. I've also searched the archives, but I find no mention of it. My particular application is recovering the pneumatics in an Aeolia...

•Hi, David McQuaide (in 130418 MMDigest) mentions wanting to sell a Universal Piano Co. nickelodeon of circa 1980. We have just been offered one of these, not working of course. Am I right in assuming that they have poor pouches, possibly of Perflex? Is it usual to replace them with tan pouch leathe...

•I have decided to sell my Universal Nickelodeon. This Universal Nickelodeon was extensively rebuilt recently by Josh Rapier. Here is his comment concerning this nickelodeon: "Hi Tom. The Universal Nickelodeon that you own was modified to be more expressive than the way they came built out of the fa...

•I'm looking for either a complete 4-tier upper Gulbransen stack for my Mueller & Haines player piano, which appears to be from 1914 when this stack was introduced. These are screw-on pneumatic/valve units with a green paper gasket. I would be happy just to have a set of pneumatics as the rest of my...

•Hello everyone. I am more than knee-deep rebuilding a Welte Vorsetzer. This one had been modified to play both styles of Welte rolls: two roll-frames, Ampico electric drive motor, and some other creative modifications. The pump is done, the upper cabinet and all control pneumatics and valves are do...

•When I responded to the sponge neoprene question, we were talking about a Duo-Art stack that had it. This indicated that what was on the piano was the perfectly awful sponge neoprene sold by Durrell Armstrong [Player Piano Company] in the 1970s. When Durrell was pushing that stuff I was young and g...