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 [ Ref. "Repairing Old Piano Rolls" in 090126-090204 MMDigest ]

Hello;  I recently purchased two large boxes of piano rolls.  One box
is newer rolls and the second is much older rolls.  I could tell when
removing the older rolls that they were fragile.  

I inspected the edges and found no tears or splits, and they played
wonderfully -- actually much better than the new rolls.  Just before
the first roll finished playing, the left edge began peeling away as
it rolled onto the receiving spool.  Within a second the roll had
completely self-destructed.

The second roll played successfully through to the end, but it also
began to destroy itself on rewind, this time on both the right and left
edges.  Since the rolls appeared perfect, what I'd like to know is if
there is any way to reinforce both edges of older rolls in order to
prevent this problem.

I can't bring myself to attempt to play any more of the older ones for
fear that the rolls will destroy themselves in the process -- especially
since there's no way to determine visually in advance if this will
happen.  My intent would be to reinforce the full length of the edges
on both sides rather than spot tears.

It would break my heart to lose these wonderful, old rolls, so any help
would be appreciated.

Terri Maijala
temaijala@sbcglobal.net.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]