Greetings from Delaware!  I bought a 1970s vintage player piano at an
auction the other night.  $12.50 seemed too good to pass up, even though
I knew the purchase price was only the beginning... :-)  I came home,
did a trusty Alta Vista web search and came up with a link to MMD --
terrific!

I had it moved to my house this morning and ran out and snagged a
handful of rolls -- hey, I can dream, can't I?

I've got my requisite share of newbie questions to pose to the group,
but I'll start with a description of the unit.  The piano is an
Aeolian, and is labeled "The Sting Player Piano", which I suspect means
it was marketed to take advantage of the movie.

It's got both an electric pump and pedals.  There's a pull underneath
the keyboard (almost like the choke control on a lawn mower) that drops
and lifts some sort of felt and tab contraption sitting between the
hammers and strings.

In the roll section, there's an on/off button (pretty obvious what
that's for) but there's also a knob above that button whose function is
a mystery.  The roll section also has a play/rewind lever.

The small control panel in front of the keyboard looks like so:

          +--+    +--+    +-------------------------+
  +----------------------+
          +--+    +--+    +-------------------------+
  +----------------------+

From the left to the right, there is a pair of push buttons and a pair
of levers.  The labels aren't very clear, but the buttons appear to
have something to do with bass and treble.  The left lever is a mystery
to me (I think it says "soft" on the left side and "pedal" on the
right) -- the lever stays in the right position normally, I can move it
to the left, but it springs back on its own.  The right lever is the
tempo control.

After plugging it in and trying a couple of rolls, here's how it
behaves:

Virtually no notes will actually play.  The hammers all move, the keys
all move, but only a few make enough contact to make a sound, and not a
particularly loud sound at that.

When playing a roll, the play/rewind lever sometimes spontaneously
flips from play to rewind.

"So, aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Any ideas on the various controls on this player?  Tracking down an
owners manual would be wonderful, but any info would be greatly
appreciated.

Similarly, any instant diagnosis on the playing problems?  I'll be
trying my hand at fixing the beast myself, though I suspect it's a
gonna be a long process.

Well, that's all for now...

Tony Eros
Wilmington, DE

 [ Welocme to MMD, Tony.  You can find a lot of good information in
 [ the MMD Archives at http://mmd.foxtail.com/  -- in particular,
 [ check the articles under the key-word Aeolian.  Good luck with
 [ your new piano!  -- Robbie