It sure sounds...authentic? Reviving the reiterating Xylophone (Time for Some Change Episode 6)

[@samshublom8761]

13:35 "xylophone...glockenspiel...I can't marimba." This has to be some of your best work to date. Keep it up. And the piano is coming along nicely, also.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

It's the little things in life. Thank you so much for watching!

[@nagualdesign]

It's funny how young children are taught the word _xylophone_ because it's one of the few words beginning with _x,_ and they're given toy glockenspiels because they're cheap to manufacture, so many people grow up confusing the two.

[@dcallan812]

Great update 2x👍

[@e7yu]

Hello, Nate I am appreciative of you for making this channel. I recently got a hold of a player piano similar to yours. And are in the process of studying up to restore it. I look forward to taking notes from your videos. 😄🎉🎆🎇

[@donteach2288]

Love you made new valve covers. Hope you used blotter paper rings when you installed them. Coinola used them as a gasket on the fiber valve covers.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Yes I certainly replaced the gaskets. Thank you for your help choosing the correct tap!

[@Skgwgaietto]

I wish I had more time to watch more of your videos. I wish I had time to come see your shop! This makes me wanna get back into my baby grand project. I love covering pneumatics and pouches. Great video!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

There's never enough time! Thank you for watching when you can.

[@marktubeie07]

I love the fact that you discovered a _manufacturer's fault !_ My brain automatically thinks that just couldn't be because of the, possibly unjustified, assumption that quality control was so good back in the day. Ha, maybe that's just me, but an amazing fact you discovered. Nate it's tragic that you can't monetize your videos just because of the music, although I do see why. Are there roll selections you could play that have fallen into the public domain perhaps, or that doesn't work either? Beautiful job as always, thanks for this latest upload :)

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

They were human, too! And of course they had to turn a profit, so shimming with extra paper to fill the fault was the most economical compromise. Thank you for all your support, Mark!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Also - thanks for suggesting the idea of royalty-free music. I haven't plunged down that rabbit hole yet!

[@marktubeie07]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum You're welcome, just a thought. Maybe summer of those rolls with songs way back when are possible in the public domain, so you're cool to use. You might have to check it online though 🤪

[@andrewbarrett1537]

If you look at old interior photos of piano factories, organ factories, and player action factories (Operators' Piano Co. would qualify as the latter since they didn't actually build their pianos; they sourced the pianos and cases from Smith, Barnes & Strohber and at least two other yet-unidentified companies), you will see that there was a LOT of hand work done. While certainly there were full machine facilities with lots of automated equipment, table saws, drill presses, etc., mostly run by belt drive off ceiling line shafts from the main power source for the factory, quite a lot of the work was smaller hand work that was done by consulting blueprints they had on hand, and using jigs and other timesaving devices to make the work go faster. But apart from this, quite a lot was done by hand by dozens of people. So there was room for error. The automation wasn't really extensive in these early factories and robots were not a thing yet in factories.

[@andrewbarrett1537]

Frankly, most music found on VINTAGE O-rolls is public domain (so long as the original tune was copyrighted in 1927 and earlier, as of 2024), and since Operators' Piano Co. went out of business sometime in the 1930s, I daresay their O-roll arrangements are now public domain as well. (Operators was the parent company of the Columbia Music Roll Co / Capitol Roll & Record Co / Capitol Music Roll Co, which ran from 1918 until 1934; no relation to the simultaneously-existing Columbia Phonograph Co., nor the later Capitol Record Co in Los Angeles). Although QRS is still in business today (They were the other big maker of O-rolls back in the day, whose arrangements were used for most O-rolls made 1913-1918; at least those not made by U. S. Music of Chicago, whose coin-op division was the basis for the Columbia Music Roll Co, and the rights of whose coin-op arrangements/material, had legally transferred to CMRCo in 1918), as far as I can tell, they practically never copyrighted their musical arrangements on rolls, at least not in the 'original era'. Nonetheless, in terms of 'good manners' if not actual law, folks producing albums of piano roll recordings in the modern era (lets say 1970s-present) have habitually written QRS for permission to use any old material originally issued by them 'back in the day', which they have generally graciously given, with the cavet/request that they receive some small credit on the resulting album (probably to let folks know they're still in business, so they can continue to buy more newer rolls!). I would think the same should be done by, at least, popular/monetized KZbin channels, if not the smaller ones which are mostly watched by relatively few enthusiasts. A few more things: KZbin content creators have to watch out for BOGUS copyright strikes made by automated / AI software (like SoundHound, Shazam and equivalent) "listening" to audio from uploaded videos, and correlating it (usually rightly, but sometimes QUITE wrongly) with copyrighted preexisting recordings. In case of a mis-correlation, the channel proprietor or whomever maintains the channel, should watch for these claims, and dispute them with KZbin as soon as possible, to avoid their content being wrongfully flagged and maybe taken down. ALSO: there have been various bogus/fly-by-night "publishers" or "copyright agencies" which have been trying to falsely claim ownership of various public-domain works. They have targeted some of my friends in the ragtime community several years ago. These aren't simple automation error / misidentification problems, but are actual scammers trying to enrich themselves (royalties) at the expense of content creators. These folks also have to be reported as soon as possible (and all of their activities against a person documented for the authorities), so they can be shut down ASAP so they can leave folks alone.

[@Mrcaffinebean]

As always excellent restoration of some very clever mechanisms

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

I'm so glad it's over!

[@greggilbert78]

Your work is unconditionally precisionally (is that a word?) done.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

A wise man once said: "attention to detail is important"!

[@aspensmusicandrestoration]

Great job on each one of those little reiterating pneumatics! Those are no easy task, especially with how complicated some of them can get. I've found that Coinola's inside pallet valve method works a lot better than some of the simpler ones that just have a hole that opens in the back whenever the pneumatic closes. That's going to be a very, very nice piano when it's finished!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Thank you! I definitely got into the weeds getting the pallets right, but I'm all the wiser for next time.

[@Ififitzisitz]

I was really exited about this episode! And I always wondered how repeating mechanisms like that worked. Thanks for sharing!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

They're entirely unnecessary but so clever. I can't wait to hear it together with the piano! Maybe it will sound more balanced then.

[@anthonygiglio9860]

Great Video Nate You Do Good Work😊

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Hey, thank you!

[@richdodenhoff6846]

I'm always impressed by your creativity. Using egg cartons to keep parts organized is very clever. The templates you create to make new parts are brilliant.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Among many other things, I learned the egg carton trick from Bruce Newman. Thanks for your kind words!

[@PlayerPianoFavorites]

Beautiful work you’ve done to that xylophone! I recently made part 1 of me attempting to fix my player piano, and seeing you do this is very interesting!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Thanks! Have fun with your Beckwith.

[@pprehn5268]

You impress me with your passion and skills.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Thank you! I'm lucky to be able to do this.

[@bevo65]

I’ve said it before: This is such an awesome project. Riveting!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Thank you so much for watching!

[@dakel20]

Can never really get over how incredibly complex these machines are. We tried to rebuild a piano ONCE, and in the chaos of my gramma's death, we failed even that fairly "simple" task. Thank you so much for sharing these videos, they're some of my favorites to watch.

[@melody3741]

Pianos are almost absurdly complicated for what they are (mostly because of the number of keys)

[@c.k.4233]

You are just amazing. How can you do all of this. Nice Job I wish you lived next door i now have two electric, and 2 pump type pianos

[@Blbear2000]

I am totally amazed and impressed by your work. Rather than try to cobb something, you are redoing this totally the right way!!!!!! I have seen so many horrible cobb jobs and poor band aids over the years on work. This is not you!!!!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Wow, thank you! I am always trying to leave things better than I found them.

[@nagualdesign]

Subscribed. 👍🏻

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

I appreciate it. Thanks!

[@johnroper1552]

Rubber cloth of multiple kinds is available from Organ supply. Still very widely used. Also, future restorers will thank you if you use hide or fish glue (what would have been used originally) instead of white glue for pneumatics and leather.

[@danielmkubacki]

Great job Nate!

[@arnhemseptember2009]

Fascinating complexity....

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Almost too complex.

[@arnhemseptember2009]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum Good thing you are clever 🙂

[@feynthefallen]

The point about materials in a restoration is a moot one. There are historically accurate preservations and there are functional refurbishments. Both have their place. What's more important is payingt attention to not destroy irreplaceable parts of the object's provenance, putting stuff back the way it was and not different where possible, using non-degrading, well documented materials and keep records of the composition and what solvents and techniques will undo your work. If you want to do the next guy who works on this in another hundred years a huge favor, write up all you did and how you did it, print it up on acid-free paper together with material data sheets if you have them, and put them in a pouch in the back of the piano.

[@Player-Pianos]

When is the next video coming out?

[@lukesvintagetrains5495]

Hello, this is a non related question but, I’ve seen that you have worked on a 70’s aeolian pianola. I just got one, and someone mentioned that the rubber tracker bar tubing was lined with asbestos. Is this true? If so, do you know how to keep it safe, without replacing any tubing? I’m an amateur with player pianos, and I don’t want to throw the thing away. Thanks! Ps. I love your videos, keep it up!

[@andrewbarrett1537]

We have a 1960s Aeolian player piano and the rubber tubing in ours looks perfectly normal. I have never heard of any player company using Asbestos in their tubing. Plain rubber tubing was most common; a few fancier ones have cloth-covered rubber tubing. Later on some people used neoprene or plastic tubing when rebuilding, with mixed results. Some orchestrions and a few fairground organs have cardboard tubing which is heavily shellacked inside and out to give it rigidity and make it airtight. Many old home player pianos may have lead tubing, but the lead is usually inert and not directly a hazard.

[@lukesvintagetrains5495]

@@andrewbarrett1537 thank you so much, the day after I posted this we did a test and it came back negative. But I did have one more spot that I think may have it. On the electric motor there is some old insulation. Do you think that would have asbestos in it?

[@dwrjames]

Hi there , can you tell me where you source your pouch leather from?

[@brychtik7888]

Hello, I would like to ask. Are the wooden pieces of the xylophone just between those metal strips, or is something between them, like a piece of rubber or leather?

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

There's felt on the back rack and on the metal strips.

[@brychtik7888]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum Thank You very much!