Wurlitzer Style 17 (Regular) PianOrchestra
Philipps Pianella Model Special
Music Roll Mechanism
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) Overall view of the rather simple looking single music roll mechanism in the Style 17 PianOrchestra. The removable tracker bar is of hard maple, and is gasketed to the wood junction block behind it and held tight by finger operated metal latches located on either side. The individual bleeds are in the removable part of the tracker bar, which makes for easy cleaning. The wood junction block acts as a distribution point for the lead tubing that fits into its back side. Notice that the take-up spool has no side flanges to constrain the lateral movement of the music roll, which is in stark contrast to the design of most other rewind type music roll handling devices. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) Rotational power to rewind the music roll is provided by the drive shaft near the top of the photograph. Rewind torque for the actual music roll spool is delivered by means of the ladder chain. In normal play operation the upper chain sprocket runs free on the shaft. The lower sprocket is in combination with a grooved pulley, in which a short piece of round leather belting is adjustably spring loaded so as to provide some small bit of resistance to the un-spooling of the music roll. This helps to keep the music roll paper snugly against the tracker bar. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) This detail view clearly shows the spur gear setup. The shaft on which the small spur gear is fixed rides in a bearing hole in a flat steel lever that has as its own bearing point a metal shoulder screw located towards the backside of the roll frame's side plate. This arrangement allows the small spur gear to be raised and lowered as necessary, thereby engaging or disengaging the gears. The position of this bearing lever is controlled by a wire connected to the "play" pneumatic located underneath the roll mechanism's bottom shelf. Its operation is basically quite simple: Whenever there is a vacuum in the system the pneumatic collapses and the spur gears are engaged, thereby drawing the music roll forward over the tracker bar. When the vacuum is flushed during the rewind cycle the pneumatic falls open and the spur gears are disengaged. The flat steel linkage with a twist in it and terminating at the horizontal lever immediately below the teeth in the sprocket gear is what pulls the roll mechanism into the rewind mode. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) Detail view of the rewind-to-play mechanism. There is a shallow sloped notch with a blunt trailing edge in the right side of the take-up spool. The way the spool has been rotated here the blunt edge is visible at the bottom edge of the take-up spool. When a music roll with a tapered leader is threaded up for play the metal pawl (or finger) that rides loosely on the take-up spool slips over the sloped notch without any mechanical effect, and then as the music roll winds up on the take-up spool the pawl rides effortlessly over the paper surface. When the roll is being rewound onto the music roll spool the pawl on the take-up spool again rides easily over the paper surface, but when the long tapered roll leader exposes the metal surface of the take-up spool the pawl falls into the notch and pushes the pawl back, thereby disengaging the rewind mode of operation. The music roll can now be changed, or play the first tune, whichever my be desired by the orchestrion's attendant. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) Detail view of the hollow drive shaft with the clutch blade and its tapered bearing-pin removed. The chain sprocket that drives the rewind action is normally mounted on the shaft shoulder to the right of the hub or collar. The slotted brass follower is at left, with its long connected pin still inserted into the hollow shaft. The clutch blade has been removed and is shown laying below the shaft hub, oriented correctly so as to easily slip into the slot in the hub. The small hole in the clutch blade is the bearing swivel point, and the small protrusion above it fits into a slot in the inner metal pin that connects to the slotted brass follower. A standard tapered pin is used as a bearing point, and when set after a few taps with a small hammer will not work loose. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) This overall view of the roll mechanism belt system shows how the power train components fit together. A round leather belt runs from a pulley on the pump crankshaft up to the horizontal shaft (near the top of the photograph) that connects to the roll frame. A narrow flat belt runs from this upper shaft down to the flat belt pulley on the lower tapered wood cone, whereupon another narrow flat belt connects between the two oppositely tapered wood cones. The upper wood cone is connected by its shaft to the universal joint to its left, and then to the small spur gear that drives the music roll take-up spool. Adjusting the lateral position of this cone-to-cone flat belt, in relation to the tapered cones, determines the music roll speed and/or tempo. The long narrow flat metal linkage connected to the roll frame and dangling down alongside the feeder pump is the rewind trip hook, which engages a protruding pin on the pump's moving board, and when engaged by a small pneumatic it both opens the vacuum flushing valve on the pump vacuum reservoir and pulls the roll mechanism into rewind mode. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) This detail view of the tapered cone-to-cone type of music tempo control shows the relationship between the two cones and the easily adjustable flat belt position control. The round leather belt coming up from below provides rotational power to both the roll frame and to the cone drive. The speed of the upper shaft is not affected by the cone drive, and so consequently the rewind speed remains constant, regardless of the tempo setting for the take-up spool, which is powered by the cone drive. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) This view looking up underneath the roll mechanism shelf shows the "play" pneumatic, which pushes up on a metal rod that causes the meshing of the take-up spool gears whenever there is a vacuum in the system. The lead tube from the "play" pneumatic connects to a port on the stack that leads directly into its vacuum supply. When the roll mechanism is pulled into the rewind mode a large flushing valve on top of the vacuum reservoir dumps any vacuum, whereupon the "play" pneumatic relaxes, thereby disengaging the take-up spool drive gears. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) View of the tracker bar tubing fanning out from the backside of the tracker bar distribution block. The small wooden block (being held slightly aside) is for bass octave coupling. There are five tubes out the bottom (one is broken off and missing in this photograph) that go to the stack and that play bass piano notes. The tubes coming out of the top and backside go up to the tracker bar and serve to couple selected bass notes with another bass note one octave lower. Such coupling was common practice in Philipps instruments whenever the piano had more bass notes than could be directly accommodated by the music roll. |
(Photographs courtesy of David Ramey, Jr.) This image shows the difference between the music roll spools used for a single roll mechanism and for those used in the much more elaborate revolver mechanik, or roll changer. The two spooled music rolls with the extended and slotted shaft are intended for PianOrchestras fitted with a single roll mechanism, such as the Style 17 Pianorchestra. The interchangeable music roll spool (with no music roll) is made exclusively for machines with a Philipps made roll changing device. After circa 1907-1908, Philipps machines imported by Wurlitzer were almost exclusively fitted with roll changers, although for several years after the roll changers was introduced, circa 1905, it was advertised as an option. |
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