Hello MMD. As I sort through my large collection of 65-note rolls,
I occasionally come across a roll that has had the little wooden boss
on the outside of the right-hand spool end sawn off. I think this is
a roll that has been adapted to play on a Simplex player.
Why? Because a few of the rolls in this collection were Simplex rolls
(I've since sold them.) When I tried playing them I found that the
entire roll was displaced about an eighth of an inch to the right,
compared to an ordinary 65-note roll. After a certain amount of
fiddling about it was possible to play them, but it wasn't worth the
effort.
I make my mutilated rolls playable again by slipping two eighth-inch
slices of neoprene tubing over the right-hand winged pin, choosing
tubing diameters that fit one inside the other, with a snug fit on the
pin.
I guess that if a Simplex owner is desperate enough he or she could try
pulling out the RH pin of a 65-note roll, sawing off the spool end boss
and then replacing the pin. This idea doesn't really appeal to me,
I must say.
John Phillips in Hobart, Tasmania
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