[ Ref. Daniel Bush in 100208 MMDigest ]

Hello Daniel,  Let me offer the following tongue-in-cheek reply to your
request, and then maybe some help.

If your customer came into your piano store and begged you to tune up
his antique Aston Martin, would you do it?  Okay, that's a stretch, but
what if he asked you to restore his antique trombone, what would you
say?  If he begged, would you do it?

Admittedly, I am making the assumption that yours is a piano store and
that pianos are your area of expertise.  If so, about the last thing
I would suggest is for you to attempt to tune a music box.  About the
only similarity between a piano and a musical box is that they both
make music -- at least they are supposed to.

The second clue that you shouldn't try it is this.  Neither you nor
your customer realizes that tuning is not very likely to be the cause
of the problem, especially if the tines appear to be in good condition.

The most likely cause of the problem is a combination of bent pins on
the cylinder and the cylinder being out of registration.  With the
cylinder on tune #1 and stopped so that the tines are in the dead space
between tunes, you will notice that there are a series of center-punch
marks directly in front of the tips of the tines.  They must line up
exactly.  I suspect that this is not the case with this musical box.
If so, the box will play (for instance) tune #2 and some of the notes
from tune #1 or #3.  If some of the pins are bent, you have the same
effect -- some pins that should play do not and some that should not do.
Either way, it's not the tuning that is at fault.

If you confirm that one of these is the problem, contact me directly
and I'll explain how to fix it.  And if you don't know how to
disassemble the musical movement, don't try to do it until you find
out.  If you turn the wrong screw, you'll be buying your customer
a new musical box.

Regards from upstate New York USA -- still not much snow but maybe
tomorrow.

Craig Smith