In 1986, as a newcomer to the field of mechanical music, the author
rebuilt his first foot pumped player. The action was Simplex. The
cloth used was made by Archer Rubber in Massachusetts.

The player performed beautifully in the sense that the player was
able to play reliably at 4 inches of vacuum and would play, albeit
erratically, at 3.5 inches. The expression available by careful
pedaling was quite musical.

The next unit to be rebuilt had a H.C. Bay action. When reassembled
and tested, it required 6 to 7 inches of vacuum to play reliably.
By comparison with the Simplex, it was dreadful!

It transpired that the original Archer Rubber material was not
available at that time and so a local Australian-made material was
substituted. The base cloth was described as 80/80 shirt material.

The poor performance suggested a line of investigation to determine
those factors which led to a reliable playing performance at low
levels of vacuum. This paper records the results of the investigation.

Paul Rumpf
Melbourne, Australia
rumpf.paul@yahoo.com.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]

 [ Pneumatic_cloth_design.doc (5,013 kb; MS Word 97 document)
 [ https://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/22/04/21/220421_203148_Pneumatic_cloth_design.doc