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MMD > Archives > September 2000 > 2000.09.04 > 04Prev  Next


Sluggish Roll Drive
By Roger Waring

On my way back from Bude Jazz Festival I called in to service a very
nice Broadwood player with an Otto Higel action.  The local piano
technician had attempted to resolve a problem with the wind motor -
rolls simply would not play - and had failed to resolve the fault.
I spent an hour checking everything and discovered the following:

The stack was fine. All governors were OK. The wind motor was smooth
and properly regulated. The ladder chain and cogs were in good order -
nicely tight without being overdone. The take-up spool and spindle were
free-running.

But still the drive mechanism would not turn smoothly.  I diagnosed the
problem as being in the drive frame - the two retaining holes on each
side of the rectangular frame that held the central spindle in place
were very sticky.

Upon disassembly I cleaned everything but the spindle was still binding.
I realised that the two holes opposite one another were imperfectly
aligned. And so the spindle would not turn freely.  Using a small file
I reamed the holes by a few thousandths of an inch, cleaned them again,
applied a very small amount of light machine oil, and bingo! Everything
now worked beautifully.

One very happy customer.

Not a complex problem compared to some described in MMD but perhaps it
might save someone else from scratching their heads in the future!

Roger Waring
The Pianola Workshop

Solihull England


(Message sent Mon 4 Sep 2000, 11:45:31 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.)

Key Words in Subject:  Drive, Roll, Sluggish

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