The Piano Action and Key Plant of Aeolian's Memphis operation was
across town from the main plant on Pershing Avenue.   Not only did this
plant manufacture all the piano actions and keyboards, they made the
player mechanisms.

I have already described how they made the keyboards.  It was all
interesting, but I the player building held my attention the most.  A
lot of the techniques, it was explained to me, were ones that had been
used for decades, and were certainly different from anything that I
would have imagined.  Again a lot of the steps, like cutting the milled
lumber, etc., were automated, but there was a LOT of hand work done.

All wooden parts were milled at the main plant on Pershing Ave, the
only part of the operation that I was NOT allowed to see; insurance
reasons were cited.  The pneumatic bottom boards did not have the holes
drilled in them: that was done in the PA & K plant a dozen boards at a
time.  A stack of boards  were placed in a machine, and with the press
of a foot pedal, all twelve were drilled at one time with a special bit
that looked not unlike a hole saw.

The pneumatic boards were butted end to end in a fixture, probably
twenty pair at a time and the hinges  glued on.  Each workstation had
shelves which held a large number of the fixtures, so the glue would
have a chance to dry.  When the glue had dried, the now mated pairs
were placed in another fixture that held them open the proper distance.

The cloth was glued on one long side first, twenty pneumatics at a
time.  They were set aside to dry and the next twenty had the cloth
glued to one side.  When the glue had dried the open end, the second
side and finally the hinge end, were glued.  This was a continuous
process spaced out so that the glue would have time to dry.  The glue
was applied with rollers, and I do not know what they used.   When
these were dry, they were "trimmed" by a woman who held the flat sides
of the pneumatics against a very large "sanding" wheel; it was about
three feet in diameter and rotated very slowly.  The excess cloth was
sanded off.  The pneumatics for the wind motors were made the same way.

Each deck of the stack had all the pneumatics glued on at once.  Glue
was spread the entire distance of the deck, the pneumatics were held in
position by a fixture, and then the whole thing was clamped at one
time.  These clamps were on a Ferris wheel like machine, and as one
deck was glued, it rotated and the woman put on another deck, spread
the glue, and inserted the pneumatics.  By the time she got completely
around the "Ferris wheel" the glue on the first deck was dry and the
deck was removed to make room for a new deck.  These decks were passed
to another department to have the valves glued on.  I do not remember
how many decks the "Ferris wheel" held.

In another department, the valves were made, as you know, from three
plastic pieces.  They used tan pouch leather, and neoprene sponge for
the valves themselves.  There were "right hand" and "left hand" valves
depending on their placement on the decks.  They used DuPont "Ducco" to
glue the valves to the decks.

The upper actions, spoolbox, wind motors, etc., were assembled in a
separate section and the tubing was installed there.  The ends of the
tubing going to the valves were inserted into fixtures that had dowel
rods sticking out of them.  The tubes were in order so that the player
installers would not have to worry about what tubes went where.

The finished stacks and upper actions were loaded in to large carrier
boxes for the trip BACK across Memphis to another plant located
directly across Pershing Avenue from the main plant.  It was here that
the player mechanisms were installed in the pianos.  The entire player
was installed by one workman at each piano...no assembly line here.  I
cannot remember how many workstations they had, but the workers at each
station did the whole piano, tested it and then moved on to the next
one.  The pianos were then loaded onto trucks for delivery to dealers
all over the country.

Someone was building nickelodeons in those days using the Aeolian
player piano.  They did not use the upper action, and those were either
not shipped with the pianos or returned to Aeolian.  I can remember
seeing stacks of those upper actions,  complete with the wind motors
just sitting there.  Aeolian would not use them in the production
pianos.  I could never get an explanation as to why.

Aeolian sold their player pianos to any piano dealer in those days.
There was no exclusive dealership; if there was, then we had three
"exclusive" dealers in San Antonio, because we did all the warranty
work on Aeolian players until the operations in Memphis ceased sometime
in the 'Eighties.  There are still a lot of those players out there.

The main problem in the early days with the valves was the fact that
the foam valve would come unglued from the stem.  Aeolian fixed that by
using a washer and brad to hold them on.  To replace a valve you have
to break the old one off, clean the area, and glue a new valve on.  If
anyone has figured out how to rebuild those plastic valves, let me
know.

Ed Gaida