Hi,  There was a question recently about polishing the cylinder from
a music box.  I'd like to offer a couple of comments and pass along
some advice that Elton Norwood gave to me many years ago.

Elton Norwood, an associate of David Wells and a friend of Nancy Fratti
and many others, was one of the finest restorers of cylinder music
boxes until his untimely death over 10 years ago.  And a fine fellow
to boot!  He had the world on some strings.

The horse-hair wheel that Nancy sells does a fine job of polishing the
cylinder.  It has individual bristles that pass around the pins rather
than catching, like a cloth wheel would.  But, I find that it has two
major drawbacks:

First, it is very easy to damage a cylinder while presenting it to
the wheel.  A little jerk downward or to the side while polishing
can easily cause a lot of damage to the pins by hitting the cylinder
against the frame of the drive motor or lathe bed.  No, I didn't learn
this the hard way, but I could see the potential while using the
horse-hair wheel that I have -- so I stopped using it.

Second, when you've finished buffing the cylinder, you will find
a small amount of polish around each pin.  How do you get rid of that?
You use a tooth brush.

So, why not use a tooth brush all along?  You can work slowly and
carefully and there's much less chance of a sudden move causing damage.
Much less stressful too!

Third, Elton recommended "Wright's All Purpose Brass Polish" to me and
I have used it ever since.  Brasso appears to be more aggressive than
necessary.  But the main reason for using Wright's is the chemical
formulation.  If you apply most other brass polishes, like Brasso, you
will notice a faint pink color around all the pins.  There seems to be
some kind of reaction between the steel pins and the brass that is
enhanced by the chemicals in the polish.  The result is the pink color.
After the polish dries, you have to buff the brass to remove the color.

I have spoken with the owner of Wright's and he doesn't know what it
is that causes this effect.  In fact, Wright's Copper Cream works very
well as a polish on brass, but it too has this effect.  So I stick to
the All Purpose Brass Polish and get great results.  And if you want
a higher polish than you get with a tooth brush on other parts of the
mechanism, you can let the Wright's polish dry and buff it to a mirror
finish with a dry brush or a cloth.

A final piece of advice: Here's a question.

If you have a cylinder music box that does not work properly and you
want to find out what's wrong with it, what's the first thing you
should do?

If you don't know the answer to this question, you should _not_ try
to fix the box yourself.  Leave it alone and get some reliable advice.
If you don't want to follow this advice, better save up some money
before you start taking it apart.

Craig Smith