My boss at Glen Echo was out of the park today, so the care of
our Wurlitzer 165 fell to me.  I was shown how to change rolls and
clean the tracker bar, but that was all I knew.  The organ had
a million different little problems today, but I found myself able to
solve them all because I've read enough here and a few other places.
(Thanks to everyone who's disseminated their knowledge here!)

The problems I fixed were all quite small, but it was still a great
feeling.  I've been fortunate to have a lot of different experiences
this summer, but I can say that troubleshooting the organ today was the
most rewarding thing I was able to do.

One roll tore off the cardboard core at the end of playback.  The
adhesive on another roll's leader tab failed just after I'd put it onto
the frame.  Some notes ceased to play because of lint accumulation on
the tracker bar.  Another roll was tracking incorrectly.  A few other
things went wrong as well.  All miniscule problems, sure, but I was
glad to have been able to fix them.

The (relatively) big problem of the day occurred just after I'd changed
one roll.  While I had the upper chuck out to change that roll, I had
removed the tracker bar and cleaned it briefly.  I had just had trouble
coaxing the nut off of a chuck because I'd tightened it too much, so I
was careful not to over-tighten the tracker bar when I put it back on.

As soon as the roll started playing, it was marred by a bass note which
sustained frequently and for no apparent reason.  It would start
without any perforation instructing it to do so, and would finish for
no discernible reason.  I was stymied after I tried a few things, so
eventually I found Durward Center's telephone number.

Durward asked a few questions and instantly diagnosed the problem, so
a million thanks to him.  It turns out that I had left the tracker bar
too loose on one side, such that there was leakage from other notes to
that bass note.  It was Durward's solution, but it still felt good to
implement it.  I was glad Durward didn't have to be called up from
Baltimore for a service call.

Finally, it's so fortunate that there's such a variety of music
available.  I changed each roll as soon as it was done and I ended up
hearing more than ten different rolls today.  I played a classical
roll, a 1919 march-waltz roll, a composite of early Wurlitzer 6-tuners,
a T.R.T. roll, a B.A.B. transcription, one of Rich Olsen's rolls, and
everything in between.  They were all excellent.  I often like to
close my eyes and imagine that it's whatever year the roll is from.
Of course, I don't do this too often because I can't see people coming
up to the booth to buy tickets if my eyes are closed!

In what other field can you hear a new set of tunes just by changing a
roll of paper?  It's a big reward for very little effort.  Every little
problem fixed was also rewarding.  Each troubleshooting session was its
own little adventure, a great learning experience.  Maybe if more young
people thought this way, more of them would be interested in these
fantastic instruments!

Just a few thoughts,
TJ Fisher
Washington, DC, USA