A letter to Max Kortlander from John F. Morse

A rather interesting document has come my way via Bill Flynt of Dallas,
Texas.  It is a photocopy of a report done by John F. Morse for Max
Kortlander of QRS fame; his firm was known then as the Imperial
Industrial Company.  As some of you may recall, John F. Morse was
the person responsible for saving what was left of the perforating
department of the Aeolian-American Corporation at their plant in East
Rochester, New York.

In the report to Kortlander, Morse compares three types of perforating
equipment -- Imperial perforators, the Duo-Art perforators, and the
Ampico equipment -- with the idea of taking the best features of each
and incorporating them into new equipment for Imperial.

Included in the report are diagrams of each type of die set used, the
paper feed and advance system, and detailed photos the punch heads,
dies, paper advance and just how each perforator trimmed the paper as
it emerged from the die set.

The document runs 53 pages and the last half contains illustrations of
all three types of equipment, i.e., Imperial, Duo-Art and Ampico.  I am
in the process of scanning the many illustrations and drawings to put
on my web site for all to view.  In the meantime, here is the first part
of the text of the letter dated December 27, 1956, to Max Kortlander of
the Imperial Industrial Company.

 - - -

December 27, 1956

Dear Max,

On November 2nd and 3rd, 1956, I made a complete survey of the roll
cutting equipment presently operating in your plant.

As you know, we have recently purchased four Ampico and two Duo-Art
cutting machines from the Aeolian-American Piano Company, which
equipment is located here in our plant.  After returning  from New York
last month, we have completed a similar survey of the Ampico and
Duo-Art machines and feel that we now have a pretty good cross section
of these three types of equipment.

The purpose of this letter is to acquaint you with the various
features of the three systems and to submit a proposed plan for your
consideration in connection with the design and manufacture of new
equipment for you.

In addition to the detailed examination of the three types of
equipment, we have had our attorneys make a complete patent search on
piano roll cutting machines and methods, which disclosed patents
ranging as far back as 1881 and as recently as 1929.  The search
disclosed over 150 patents covering this art, which gives a pretty good
picture of almost everything that was done along that line.  All of
these patents, of course, have expired and are now public property.

In the following discussion, I will refer to your type of equipment as
"Imperial", the equipment used by The Aeolian Company as "Duo-Art" and
the equipment used by the American Piano Company as "Ampico.

General History:

Imperial:  Our patent search shows Patent No. 1,148,147 issued to
Ernest G. Clark on July 27, 1915, (application filed June 8th, 1914)
and assigned to The Melville Clark Piano Company of Chicago, Illinois.
The patent shows your equipment in detail and would indicate that the
first machines were built around 1914.

Duo-Art:  Patent 1,085,989 issued to August De Kleist and Frank L.
McCormick.  Patent issued February 3rd, 1914, (application filed April
5th, 1911)  This patent was assigned to The Rudolph Wurlitzer
Manufacturing Company of North Tonawanda, New York.

This patent shows the Duo-Art machines that I have, pretty much in
detail, though the actual patent pertains to an improvement on the
equipment rather than being the basic patent on the machine.  This
would indicate that the original design may have been somewhat earlier
than 1911.

The people at East Rochester could give me no detailed information as
to the history of the Duo-Art machines, as they are all mostly Ampico
people, but Mr. J. Wells Benedict, who was in charge of the Ampico
Service Department for many years, said that they [the perforators]
had been taken over from The Aeolian Company when the two companies
merged in the early 1930's and were moved to East Rochester where they
were used considerably up until the end of Duo-Art production in the
late 1930's.

It is entirely possible that these machines were built by Wurlitzer for
Aeolian at the time Duo-Art rolls were first produced.

One of the machines had been converted to punch Ampico rolls; that is,
it has all .072 punches instead of the two pairs of .040 theme punches
used by Duo-Art.  This change had been made some time in the early
1930's after the equipment was moved to East Rochester.

Ampico:  No specific patents have been found covering the actual
punching equipment, but I found two patents; numbers 1, 294,845 and
1,323,614, issued respectively on February 18, 1919 (application filed
April 19, 1915) and December 2, 1919, (application filed August 14,
1914), to Mr. Charles F. Stoddard of New York City.

These patents do not show the Ampico punching equipment that we have
here at the plant, but do show a system of controlling the master sheet
that is used on this equipment.

I have been unable to locate any specific patent showing the mechanical
system used in the Ampico equipment, however, Mr. Benedict of
Aeolian-American tells me that these Ampico machines were bought new in
either 1915 or 1916, at the time Ampico first started cutting their own
rolls.  Before that, they had another company make the rolls for them.
He also advises me that these machines were used right on through the
end of Ampico production in 1939 or 1940.

Nameplates on the Ampico machines show that they were manufactured by
the Taft-Pierce Manufacturing Company of Woonsocket, Long Island.

Taft-Pierce is a contract machinery manufacturer and they are still in
business in this type of work.  As they are not otherwise connected
with the piano roll punching industry, I assume that the machines were
manufactured by them under contract from The American Piano Company.
Mr. Stoddard and members of The American Piano Company probably
developed the original design.

Mr. Hill, President of Aeolian-American and an Ampico man, tells me
that they produced around 30,000 rolls(!) [Emphasis is mine -- Ed G.)
per month during the 1920s and also that there were a few more machines,
besides the four that we got from them, that were never brought to East
Rochester.

Indications are that there were six or eight machines in their
production setup.  These machines are single course machines and were
normally used in pairs, with one master controlling each pair.

The 30,000 rolls per month would be roughly equal to your present
production and would represent about 50 to 60% of capacity of six
machines based on an 8 hour day and 5 day week.

I assume the four machines we have were used more or less continuously
over the period from 1915 to 1940 and particularly through the 1920's.
No one at Aeolian-American can recall any mechanical difficulties with
the equipment, in fact, they all said that they were pretty nice
machines.

 - - -

John Morse then goes into a discussion of picking the most desirable
features of each of the three types of machines and incorporating them
into new equipment that his company would manufacture for Imperial.

To be continued here, and the complete report will be on my web site,
just as soon as I can scan the images and let my typing fingers rest.

Ed Gaida <egaida@satx.rr.com>
 - Braving a minor ice storm in sunny (?) San Antonio, Texas.