Hi All, Thanks to Don Teach, I have started adding more information
about various player piano mechanisms to Player-Care.com. Mainly,
the information is in the form of graphics which show the valve and
pneumatic configurations that were used by various manufacturers.
The information was originally used by the Danquard Player Action
School in New York City.
Fortunately, due to the fact that the MMDigest allows non-subscribers
to post inquiries, I contacted Steven Hager after his 02/19/05 posting
about the 'player piano that played during rewind'. [To make a] long
story short, we got to talking about the pictures Don had sent me and
Steven volunteered to redraw all of them. The first example I sent
Steven was redrawn and sent back in just one day (see link below).
So, I burned a disc with 63 megabytes of files (some 30 pictures) and
sent it to him. The first example of how the Danquard graphics will
look when the process is completed can be seen at
http://www.player-care.com/gifs/danquard/air-o-01.jpg
The original graphic can be seen at
http://www.player-care.com/gifs/danquard/airop-or.jpg
Today, eight more of Steven's drawings showed up in my email, and they
are great! I'll be working on them (adding color) in the coming week
and then I'll upload them to the web site. What I hope to achieve by
adding color is to make it easier to tell which parts are wood, metal,
felt, leather, cloth, or Bakelite.
Lastly, the work that I've completed to date can be seen at:
http://www.player-care.com/action-pix.html
Right now there are only nineteen actions represented on the above web
page. I'm linking the various pictures to their related System pages,
which are in place to help people identify the player mechanism in
their player piano. In total, the information Don sent me has added
eight more player actions to the list, "Known Player Actions". There
are now 80. Also, there are now over 925 names on the list, "Player
Piano Makers".
Musically,
John A. Tuttle
Player-Care.com
Brick, New Jersey, USA
[ See also "Air-O-Player Tracking Adjuster - drawing by C. H. Short,
[ August 23, 1917" at http://mmd.foxtail.com/Tech/airOplayer.html
[ -- Robbie
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