Making New Music Box Cylinders
By Larry Smith
[
[ Editor's note:
[
[ Larry Smith is a new subscriber to our group. He and I got
[ started talking about using computer technology to make new
[ music box disks and cylinders. I'm enclosing an excerpt of our
[ conversation in the hopes that it will get some additional
[ discussion going. The lines with > in front of them are
[ me typing. The other lines are from Larry
[
[ Jody
> .................... I spoke with two
> collector friends of mine yesterday about making cylinders
> and recieved "less enthusiastic" feedback. One of them,
> who is really an engineer at heart, had questions about
> the cost of sufficiently accurate NC tooling. Clearly
> more research is required. The other collector suggested
> that after placing the pins that there is still a manual
> step of "adjusting" the pin so that the note is sounded
> at _exactly_ the correct moment. He said this involves
> bending and/or filing the pin. Its not impossible that
> even that step, if required, could be automated, but it
> certainly makes the problem harder.
They are right as far as they go, but they may not be going far enough.
Pins have to be adjusted because they were, traditionally, all inserted by hand, into holes drilled by hand, and were seldom inserted to exactly the same depth because it was all by hand. All this handwork meant that the cylinder had to be tuned and adjusted by hand to sound right. On the other hand, a device will not get tired, will not be confused by a worn template, will always insert at the same force and depth, and so on, and I think that this would be very repeatable. The bending a filing are essentially adapting to the imprecision of human handwork. Now, to some extent, this is part of the charm of having a hand-made instrument. But this is the 90's, and we can do better.
We can also re-think the materials question. I've been thinking, for example, about using polumer clay to make cylinders. It is soft as modelling clay for pin insertion, no drilling needed, but can be made think enough that, after baking, not only would it be as solid and sturdy as an old-style cylinder, but it would not require being filled with cement, since the clay itself would provide the mass to prevent atonal buzzing.
Also, we can explore the possibility of doing "cuffs" instead of cylinders - cuffs were used by just one manufacturer, for a very short time, but I can see they'd be _much_ easier to manufacture mechanically. Just punch 'em out of a sheet and _then_ curl them up. They stack nicely, too.
Feel free to post this to the list, if you like. I'll set up an introduction piece when I get a chance.
regards,
Larry
> You've raised some important ideas here, and have also
> raised my awareness of some subtleties I didn't
> previously understand. The next time I'm over at
> Mike Ames' place I'm going to have to have a closer
> look at the big cylinder music box upstairs.
>
> I'll post this message to the group as you suggested
>
> Jody |
(Message sent Thu 3 Aug 1995, 16:39:46 GMT, from time zone GMT-0400.) |
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