Hello, I can add at this stage that I spoke to a person who has been
rebuilding 'pianolas' or player pianos here in Australia for a long
time. He explained to me that just about every other Aeolian stack
he has worked on has this transposing bar I mentioned earlier. This
includes Duo-Art, Half Duo-Art and 88-note players. The transposing
bars in all of them are identical and fitted in the exact same way.
Whether these were installed here in Australia or in the USA is still
currently still a mystery to me. They are of substantial engineering,
professionally installed, and the lever sort of matches the Aeolian
levers. The wooden parts are black but the finish seems a bit rougher
that the other black action stack parts.
To fit them, the piano hammer rail had to be altered, the spool box
rear had to be routed out, the tracking rewind cutout had to be moved
and the strip of wood that holds the tempo scale had to be halved,
not to mention that all the tubing had to be cut and redone as well
as some other small details. The large control lever is in at the
left front of the spool box, next to the take-up spool. It moves up
and down. The actual transposer bar sits behind the spool box.
In the piano I have here, the wooden lever holder and bracket of the
transposer does cover some other screw holes and these appear to be the
original tracking pneumatic cutout mounting holes. I don't know if
that would indicate fitment after delivery to Australia or not.
Kind regards,
Bernt Damm
Sydney
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