Bruce Clark wrote:

> Nothing bent that I can see,  and only a few of the treble notes play
> well.  The bass end of the scale is working and no teeth are broken, but
> from the middle section down there is a dull clunk whenever a note is
> played.  I even pushed a few bass star wheels to see if it was working
> properly, and it was, but still just a dull thunk.  Under the comb are
> some lead resonators, and they look like they are covered in varnish, or
> something awful, so I assume that may be one of the problems.

It's impossible to diagnose a music box from a few words over the 'Net.
But from the description, I'd guess your lead weights are suffering from
lead disease, a form of corrosion, and they may have expanded the weights
enough to bring the affected teeth (which would be the bass end of the
comb as you report) into semi-permanent contact with their dampers, which
would give you precisely the effect you describe: a dull thunk instead of
the note at the bass end of the comb.

If that's the case, you are looking at a lot of very difficult and
expensive comb work -- if I can recall my days at Joe Roesh's knee
(summer before last :).   You'd need to replace all the lead weights,
which would mean very serious re-tuning of the comb.  I do believe this
is less of an issue with a disk Regina than it would be with a cylinder
box because the Reginas (playing a great variety of music) have a
standard tuning for the comb.  Cylinder boxes tend to have wildly unique
tunings that can be almost impossible to re-establish after such work --
but I think it's _relatively_ easy for a disk box.  But, as we say in the
computer biz, it's extremely non-trivial -- and no small amount of work.

This is a guess based on your post from a not-particularly-knowledgeable,
music-box-aficionado-come-lately, with just enough information to be
exceedingly dangerous.  ;)  You definitely need to run this by Nancy
Fratti -- Robbie posted her number with your original message, but in
case these cross in the email, it's 518-282-9770.  Good luck.

Regards,
Larry Smith