Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Help identifying player mechanism part and function

I came across a part on an old player mechanism and I'm not sure what it does exactly. The hose that would normally go to the bellows motor goes to this first, and from this to the bellows motor. The mechanism that controls the play/rewind function is connected to this, telling me that this somehow either controls or regulates that function. I suspect that, whatever it does, it isn't working right as the play/rewind mechanism won't work right.

The device/mechanism consists of three silver colored metal tubes, about 6" tall and 1.5 " in diameter mounted side between the roller box and the bellows motor. There is a pipe assembly running along the bottom of the tubes. This pipe assembly sticks out to the right (toward the bellows motor). The play/rewind rod connects to this pipe assembly. The way it looks, it seems like something in the pipe moves to control the play/rewind fuction.

Any ideas?

I found this image that has the tubes.

[img]https://www.google.com/search?q=player+piano+mechanism&biw=1525&bih=708&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=DRmAVNPbBY6OyASSi4KABw&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&dpr=0.9#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=ZifuLn5-e76MyM%253A%3B55l-PI8klIqDCM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.player-care.com%252Fmelin-winkel%252Fmelin-winkel.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.player-care.com%252Fmelin-winkel.html%3B1719%3B650[/img]

The three tubes in the photo are the cylinders for the piston motor which drives the reel.

This is the page that has the original photo you referenced.

Thanks Semipro

I went and looked at it again today, and I don't think it's a motor. The piano has a conventional bellows motor. There are no mechanical connections to the gear mechanism or anything else except for the following. The only connections are the air-in and air-out tubes, and a mechanical connection to the rod that activates the play/rewind. The tubes on my customer's piano are shorter than those in the picture. It appears to be some kind of control for the play rewind, perhaps some kind of activation or switch control of the rod. It appears that whatever it does, it is hindering the free motion of the control rod. I won't be working on this piano anyway at this point. I'm not really a player person, and it's a Gulbransen player, and ALL the tubes need to be disconnected in order to remove the action as the box/motor part and the box with all the individual bellows are separate. It even says on the "How to remove player action" instructions to disconnect all the hoses. I can't imagine why someone would design an action like this. This means that to do even the simplest adjustment (let-off, lost motion, even simply tightening a hammer flange screw) THE WHOLE THING needs to be taken apart. This reminds me of a Steinway grand player I came across where the player was under the pin-block. The whole thing needed to be completely dismantled to even remove the action. I talked to Steinway about it and they couldn't even imagine why they designed it that way. I know why they did - they didn't want that quarter barrel player sticking out underneath.

The chances are that if it is not the motor, then it is a device for keeping the roll aligned as it crosses the bar. Those are usually the only things which are above the stack and connecting to the spool box.