I checked the web page article by Richard Vance, but he does not
sight the rolls used by this machine. From others, I know these are
Wurlitzer R rolls, and they use a 165-note tracker bar. On the end of
the paper the rolls are titled "Wurlitzer Reproducing Organ" rolls.
So far as I can tell the roll player is indeed Wurlitzer. There are
castings used on part of the pneumatic system in the roll cabinet with
the Wurlitzer name in the casting. The rolls are 165-note 'R' rolls,
with the leader saying "Wurlitzer Reproducing Organ".
They are certainly Wurlitzer rolls, including some recorded by Jesse
Crawford, the history of which is at least partly known. I do have
a complete list of all the Wurlitzer rolls, though the collection
I bought is not complete. I believe there were 250 titles made, and
this collection has 134.
To give a bit more of a description of the roll player, it is all built
on an aluminum chassis that is then inside the wood cabinet. The
tracker bar is all tubed with rubber (now plastic) tubing, and comes
down on curved arms to contact the roll. The vacuum pump is in the
bottom of the chassis.
The pouch contact boxes have glass covers, very much like miniature
Wurlitzer relay cases, inside of which are the electrical contacts
to convert the vacuum signal to electrical signal. Those wires then
go directly into a cable that attaches to the organ key spreaders in
the relay room, and to the multiplex relay which decodes the stops
and swells from the encoding on the roll. The keys generally play
directly, although there is some multiplexing (or transposing) to
extend the range on some manuals somewhat.
Again, all that is pretty well documented, but I simply have no
information on the wiring and pneumatic system for the roll changer
device: how it rotates to select a new roll, the rewind mechanism
and signal, how the 6-button selector panel works, etc.
Michael Coup
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