Does anyone know where I could buy a good quality hand paper punch?
The simple type that paper boys and train conductors used, but it has
to have a throat of nearly three inches (7 cm) and should punch a round
hole of 1/8" or 3 mm diameter. Getting that long reach (throat) may be
tricky. I've thought of McMaster-Carr but I don't have their catalog.
This is for hand-punching 31-note Raffin monkey organ rolls. I've
added code to my LINUX composing program to draw the rolls on fanfold
dot-matrix printer paper; now I need a way to punch out the holes.
I could punch just the start and end of a note, then cut out the long
sides with an X-acto knife. But if I do the whole job with a knife,
the rectangular hole with its sharp corners is very apt to tear.
Long ago, Player Piano Company (PPCo) sold a special punch that worked
like a spring-loaded pricking tool: you laid your roll paper over a
piece of Masonite and pressed down on the punch, and wham!, it punched
the hole. If there were such a tool scaled for 65-note piano rolls it
would probably be the right diameter for me. Thanks.
Mike Knudsen
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