These "O" rolls I arranged are now available again from Play-Rite:

SB-1 (1984) "All Ragtime Roll", 9 tunes (same length as 10 tune roll)
  12th. St. Rag and other tunes, some never on rolls before.

SB-2 (1986) "European Classic Marches": Colonel Bogey, Old Comrades, etc.

SB-3 (1991) "Rags & Dixie", 14 tunes: Ballin' The Jack, Nagasaki,
  Tiger Rag, Sheik Of Araby, etc.

Refer to Play-Rite for prices of the rolls above.

This new roll has never been offered before:

SB-4 (2002) "Favorite Melodies":

 1. Tres Moutard (Too Much Mustard) -- one-step or two-step, 1911
 2. Milanollo -- Regimental march-Coldstream Guards, 1882
 3. Tico Tico -- Samba, 1943
 4. The Wedding Of The Painted Doll -- Quick step, 1929
 5. Miss Annabelle Lee -- Quick step, 1927
 6. Cakewalkin' Babies From Home -- Cake walk, 1924
 7. Fuzzy-Wuzzy-Woo -- One-step, 1919
 8. My Wife Is Dancing Mad -- One-step, 1914
 9. Our Director -- March, early 1900's
10. After You've Gone -- Fox-trot, 1918
11. Row, Row, Row -- Two-step, 1912
12. On The Mississippi -- Two-step (Cake walk), 1912
13. El Relicario -- Paso doble, 1916
14. La Sorella -- Paso doble, early 1900's
Copyright (C) Steve Bentley 2002

Roll SB-4 is an extra long play roll.  Words to three tunes
are included.  Price is US$ 75.00.  Email me for more details:
Steve Bentley <rollmax@infinet.net>

All of the rolls listed above may be ordered from

  Play-Rite Music Rolls
  1536 N. Palm St.
  Turlock, CA 95380 U.S.A.
  Tel.: 209-632-5784 / Fax: 209-667-8241

 - - -

New Rolls & Orchestrion Maintenance

The perforations on SB-4 roll are excellent, as clean cut as can be,
but there is always the paper dust which is still adhered to the roll
when new and for some time after.

I was checking the finished copy against my master roll and I reeled
it by hand the full distance to check alignment and perforations, coin
trips holes and cancel holes, etc.  There is approximately 255 feet of
paper.  I found a good collection of paper dust accumulated on top of
the stack valve chest below the roll frame; even after 5 normal plays
there were still traces of dust.

We all should realize the need to vacuum the tracker bar quite often,
as a condition could arise such as the first extra instrument fails
to turn on, the soft pedal fails to shut off, poor response from the
triangle beater, plus playing note failures, etc.

My orchestrion was made in 1983 and, apart from other things that go
wrong through time, I have had to recover some of what I call the power
pneumatics -- the ones that operate the pedals and the snare and bass
drums -- as against the stack pneumatics.  I found small splits in the
creases, a condition brought about by having the pneumatic creasing
fully on itself too much.

By adjusting with a stop screw and a return distance limiter this
can put less strain on the cloth, so when first making a percussion
beater pneumatic the length of travel should be calculated so as the
cloth will not go to the extremes.  This is obvious to you professional
restorers reading this and others.

Everybody should be in the possession of a test roll for every type
of instrument they own.  Style "O" test rolls are still available from
Play-Rite, I believe.

Steve Bentley
Vancouver, BC