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Good Afternoon,
I have an Apolloette piano player adapter that I am trying to gather information for prior to repairing it. I believe that it is a 65 key model, with the foot pedals to provide air pressure to the actuators. The billow appears to be leather and is in shreds. I believe this model was from around 1903 to 1905. Any information on this would be appreciated.

Thanks

I assume this is a push-up cabinet player, which rolls to the keyboard of a piano. I think the mechanism is basically like all pneumatic players, just oriented differently. Art Reblitz has a book of how to repair these. Getting materials could be a problem these days, and getting 65 note rolls are another problem, as they were not used very long before 88 note rolls came in, and they are not compatible. You could try AMICA.org, and I think the Piano Technicians Guild for more information.

Yes it rolls to the keyboard of the piano. Are the 65 rolls and the 88 rolls the same size physically? I tried your suggested links, but unfortunately didn't find anything. I did however notice some strong similarities between the player I have and the Melville Clark Apollo player pianos. Could it be that the player I have was simply the workings of a player piano that was placed in a separate cabinet? If that's the case, then there is more literature out there than I realize.

Yes, the mechanism would be more or less the same as an internal player.

65 and 88 note rolls are the same size, but they have different spool ends.

Melville Clark was an early maker of players, so it could be something that he made. Interesting, he was the Clark of Story & Clark, which was more recently a name used by QRS, the player piano roll company.

I appreciate the answers. It appears someone had already tried to work on the device before, and it is missing a lot of its fasteners, hardware, etc. The individual wedge shaped vacuum actuators (no idea what they're called) appear to be there, but some of them are placed in the machine loosely.

If you are on Facebook, there is a Player Piano Talk group you might like to join. A post there may gather more information. You could also post on the Mechanical Music Digest website's forum.