In yesterdays 030516 MMDigest Dan Wilson said, "John Farrell, the
jazz piano roll arranger, had an 88-note Claviola Vorsetzer for sale
about two years ago which was quite obviously a 73-note job with an
88-note tracker-bar conversion.  The end notes were teed back to the
nearest octave up or down."

This instrument once belonged Dennis Manser, a very dear friend who
died suddenly without any warning.  He had owned it for many years
intending to carry out a conversion from 73-note to 88-note but could
never find the time.  His widow (she was not at all musically inclined)
insisted that I should have it, so I took it away on the day I had a
prearranged meeting with Robbie Rhodes, who was in this country at the
time staying at a hotel near my house.  Robbie helped me to unload the
heavy beast then announced with impressive authority that the action
was of Hupfeld manufacture (a Claviola brass inlay on a small fallboard
was the only identifying mark, there was no mention of Hupfeld
anywhere).

 [ I remembered that Hupfeld made weird 73-note rolls.  -- Robbie ]

The 73-note tracker bar had gone, an 88-note replacement had been
fitted otherwise everything appeared to be original.  The cylindrical
air motor and gears were beautifully engineered as were most of the
other moving parts, the tubing from the tracker bar to the stack was
made of copper, something I had not come across before.  The main
exhauster bellows were covered with something resembling leather,
they were still absolutely airtight.

When I investigated the possibility of a 73/88 conversion a serious
problem emerged: the Claviola plays rolls upside down, from the bottom
spool chuck to the top, which meant that in order to play regular
88-note rolls the tracker bar tubing had to be connected to the stack
in reverse order.  That is to say, the very top note on the tracker
bar had to be joined to the very bottom note on the stack, and so on.
Where the tubing crossed a huge knot was created.  It became clear that
the only way to overcome this was to replace the entire spoolbox and
associated gear with one of more conventional design.

At this point I decided that I had neither the time nor the will to
embark on such a project, therefore I put the Claviola up for sale.
Not a flicker of interest was expressed, consequently in order to
save the thing from a junkyard funeral I persuaded Roger Waring,
a player-piano restorer who lives in the British Midlands, to take it
off my hands free of charge.  I do not know what has become of it since
then; maybe Roger (also an MMD subscriber) might like to give us an
update.

John Farrell
http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm