Simplex Bellows
By Bob Hunt
Mark Widmer asked about building a replacement pump assembly for a 1925 Starck with Simplex player action).
I have several bellows assemblies from Simplex players that I acquired from a piano tuner who had removed them long ago from their original hosts. If you will take some photographs of what you have left in your piano, perhaps I can supply you with the missing parts. There was variation in the size of the bellows, and also the location of the motor governor changed over the years.
Like most folks who have this preservation bug, I can't stand to throw anything out. I would be most happy to have one less item to store though!
Straight-on photographs can be scaled to provide a fairly good start on laying out non-original parts to be retrofitted into a player. Accurately measure some part which can be used as a scale to measure other parts of the photo.
The Simplex player mechanism is an excellent working system and reasonably easy to rebuild. If you are thorough in your rebuilding and if the necessary piano repairs and tuning are done, you won't have to apologize to anyone for your piano.
Bob Hunt
optimist@cybertours.com |
(Message sent Sat 25 Jan 1997, 07:29:44 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.) |
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