Re: Music Box Rebuilding
By Tony Gray, forwarded by Peter Smakula
...And another PCS
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Subject: Re: Music Boxes
Author: tony@goodwin.demon.co.uk at CCGTWINT
Date: 11/6/95 9:03 PM
Gentlemen,
Having just heard Alan Heldman eulogise at some length apropos the talents of Mr Losch I will proceed with a little caution. I have formed a sufficiently high opinion of Alans own talents to realise that such eulogies are not dispensed lightly, however I am going to jump in here with my own 2 cents (pence) worth and disagree with *some* of John's methods, agree with others and add a few words of my own.
I frequently have the good fortune to be entrusted with the restoration of some very high quality musical boxes, or component parts of them as a couple of subscribers to this list are already aware. Am a member of the Musical Box Society of Great Britain and get to conive from time to time with the likes of Arthur Orde-Hume, who for those of you who have not heard of him, is almost certainly the worlds leading authority on musical boxes, musical clocks and mechanical music generally.
> > It is rare that I want to tell anyone he or she is in over their head.
> In this case, it would be unfair not to do so.
I must concur with John on this one and would probably go a little further and say that if this is not something that you have attempted before, or are confident that you know how to tackle, then *don't*. Don't that is unless it is your own property and you don't mind ruining it. If it is a high quality box (Jaquet Droz, Paillard, Mojon etc,etc) don't anyway. Not only is this a thoroughly laborious task, but it is *not* an easy one either. If you get it wrong (and you will already have expended many hours of labour only to discover that you have) you run the risk of ruining the comb, the resonators and the dampers. At this point you are in real trouble.
> I will not take the time here to describe the original manufacturing
> process, but it is probably easier than any repair process which follows.
Just to put you in the picture I will attempt to describe it.
The first actual factory for producing musical boxes was set up by the Paillard's in St Croix in 1875. Prior to this the industry was centered exclusively around "home" workers. One family would make pinions, another combs, another gears. One would pin cylinders and yet another would "tune" the comb teeth etc.
The actual music was marked out on the cylinder using a number of methods and was finally simplified to a certain extent by the invention of a "cylinder pricking" machine. This machine consisted of a number of keys, each representing a note that could be played on the musical box comb. The brass cylinder was first scribed to represent the spacing between the points of the teeth and then (in the first tune position) would be rotated while the "music pricker" transcribed the music from the keys onto the cylinder.
The pricked cylinder was now passed on to the "piercer" whos job was to drill a small hole through the thin cylinder at every prick mark. The piercer having finished his work would pass the job on to the "pinner" (invariably a woman or girl) who would insert a thin "pin wire" into each hole. Pin wire btw was specially prepared on a "pin lathe, which notched the wire every quarter of an inch or so. This allowed the wire to be broken off easily after insertion and also provided a tapered end for the next insertion. (Note that early boxes used a very thin brittle wire which later gave way to both a thicker and a softer variety).
The pin wire was set into each hole with a depth punch, so that all of the pins protruded the same distance from the cylinder.
The cylinder was now passed on to the "filler" whose job was to plug each end of the cylinder and fill it with a quantity of "liquid cement". This cement serves the three-fold purpose of, giving some security to the pins, adding "body" to the cylinder itself and last but by no means least, improving the tone. The cement itself consists of a mixture of resin, pitch and powdered brick dust which is heated and flowed into the cylinder and then spun in a lathe while still molten, centrifugal force distributes the cement evenly around the interior of the cylinder to a depth of about 1/4" or a little more and the cylinder remains spinning until the cement dries.
The final stage in pinning the cylinder was to pass it to the "shaver", who would set it up in a special lathe and then turn it a high speed against a traversing abrasive stone to dress the pins to the same uniform and precise length.
The reason for describing the original manufacturing process at such length is simple, the restoration process is to all intents and purposes the same thing but with the additional work first removing the old pins and the "cement". It is in the method used to remove the old pins that John and I are going to part company.
He writes:-
> > Before new wires can be inserted, the old wires must be "punched"
> through the cylindar. I use a hardened, blunted punch etc.
I have grave misgivings about "punching" out the old wires, there is far to much scope here for enlarging the holes, creating unwanted angles and not least making unsightly dents in the cylinder every time you slip.
The proper, accepted, traditional, whatever, method of removing pins is after having melted out the cement and removed *all* steel parts, ie, arbor, change snail dog etc, to soak the entire cylinder in a solution of sulfuric acid for several days. Using this method every single pin will be eaten away leaving you with perfect and undamaged pin holes. The barrel is then washed in a strong alkaline solution and finally in a hot soap and water solution.
Another area of disagreement :
> > Either after all the pins necessary are replaced, or as each section
> is finished, reach inside the cylindar and bend the new pins where they
> stick through.
If the correct size of wire has been used in the first instance, this is an unnecessary step, which again offers too much scope for altering the alignment of the holes - these barrels are *not* terribly thick.
This is getting a little lengthy, so I will draw it to a close. If you want to undertake this job let me conclude by wishing you the very best of luck and may the force be with you. Personally I contract this work out to someone who seems to enjoy it ! The cost is worked out as follows. Length in cm X diameter in cm X 1 pound sterling + 120 pounds sterling. Racked pins cost about a quarter as much again. The average cost of a barrel is thus somewhere around the 700 pound mark, but for a good box worth every penny (cent). If I did this work myself it would take longer and cost more, of that there is no doubt.
Hope this is of some general interest and my apologies to those with small mailboxes.
--
Tony Gray MBHI
Kent. England. UK
Tony@Goodwin.demon.co.uk |
(Message sent Wed 15 Nov 1995, 20:04:03 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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