Presto
Issue: 1920 1757 - Page 8
8
PRESTO
belongs to them. But the question as to the smallest piano store in
the world would not be so creditable, so the answer might not be
forthcoming. The smallest store of any kind in the world is at
Columbus Circle, in New York, a city noted for the vast number of
its "vest-pocket" stores, owing to congestion and consequent high-
rental values of space. This smallest store is a fruit shop, occupying a
space twelve feet long and two feet wide, and the rental is $100 a
week.
* * *
Mr. C. B. Evans, Chicago financial writer, classifies three types
of working people with reference to the uses they make of cash:
"Persons of sense, persons of no sense and persons of nonsense. The
first class use savings banks, then pass on to bond or stock; the second
class save never; the third class buy gewgaws." When one of the
second class fortunately gets into the piano installment purchaser
class, he often finds it a means towards qualifying for first class. Be-
cause of the third class named by Mr. Evans the bumstencil piano
became a problem in the trade.
* * *
Argentina makes a few commodities and is careful about for-
eign attempts to undersell by the price-cutting method in the home
market. An anti-dumping bill has been presented to the Argentine
Chamber of Deputies whereby all foreign goods entering in+o compe-
tition with domestic goods and sold at a price lower than their selling
price in the country of origin at the time of exportation, shall be sub-
ject to a surtax equal to the difference in the selling price increased
by 30 per cent. The South American republic has named an effective
method for keeping tab on the dumpers.
* * *
There is a relation between national and universal happenings
and piano trade events. The Autopiano Company, New York, is such
a believer in this theory that it issues a weekly news letter to its
dealers. The New York manufacturers hold that momentous political
occurrences react on business, the piano business as well as the others;
that "issues" in the making or made affect the national life and so
the affairs of business. The Autopiano Company's letter is a pres-
entation of the best "news prophecy" available in Washington and
elsewhere.
* * *
The spiel of the piano salesman is sometimes original and in-
genious and sometimes it is made up of what one sales manager calls
"mouthfuls of old stuff." One classic condemned to the cannery is
"This piano is so good it won't need tuning," or words to that effect.
This habit of the blithe salesman is alluded to in a recent bulletin of
the Gulbransen-Dickinson Co., Chicago, which says the statement
March 25, 1920.
should be turned completely around to the frank one: "Because your
piano is a good one, it deserves and needs tuning."
* * *
The president of the Chicago Piano & Organ Association, Mr.
Adam Schneider, believes it is the duty of every member to be present
at the monthly meetings of the association. And in pointing out the
plain duty, Mr. Schneider also reminds members that it is a pleasant
one. A formal luncheon is usually an accompaniment to the business
of the gatherings. The significance of the reminder is obvious when
Mr. Schneider's genius as a menu constructor is considered.
Last week's issue of the Saturday Evening Post contains another
of the instructive advertising pages of the Gulbransen-Dickinson Com-
pany, Chicago, from which every subscriber of that widely-read
weekly will learn some important facts about the functions of player-
piano pedals in general and the Gulbransen player pedals in particu-
lar. The art of the ad is in the clever manner in which a technical
fact is treated. More than a million people will learn from it the
peculiar merits of the Gulbransen "pedal touch."
* * *
The problem that stands out from all the others today is that
of increasing the production of American products. It is one that
concerns the piano industry as well as all others. The fact is recog-
nized in the preparations for the eighth annual meeting of the Cham-
ber of Commerce of the United States of America to be held in
Atlantic City, next month. The theme of the meeting is to be "In-
creased Production" and the subject will be considered in all its
hearings.
Dead timber is so regrettably common in editorial chairs that the
discovery of a "live wire" is consoling aand refreshing. C. M. Tre-
maine, director of the National Bureau for the Advancement of Music,
has discovered a music page conductor in Atlanta, Ga., whom he
characterizes as a "live wire" who has been quick to grasp the pos-
sibilities of the music page in the Atlanta Herald in exerting a pow-
erful influence in the city's musical development.
If some of the piano sale prospects are hanging fire, or the player-
piano instalments acting like the well-known molasses in winter, put
it down to the income tax. When a man with a $3,500 net income
has to pay $175 of it in State and Federal taxes in these days of high
rents and foods, it means that somebody has got to wait for hisj
money.
:|; ;|<
>|:
It sounds paradoxical to say that a good many advertising writers|
would say more if they said less.
PIANO FELTS AND HOW THEY ARE MADE
(Continued from page 5.)
the wool fibre close together without the aid of any
adhesive material or substance.
When the sheets are thus formed, they are felted,
or rather hardened down on a steam heated iron
platen, either by a man working over it with his
hands, or by a wooden cover, having an oscillating
motion. Since the side of the sheet which lays on
the steam heated platen will naturally harden quicker
than the side on which the top works, it is neces-
sary to turn the sheet over quite often, in order to
get both sides of the sheet equally hardened as far
as possible with such a process.
In hardening the thickness of the sheet is reduced
from the original ten inches to about one inch in
bass, and just as soon as the sheet has been worked
down to that one inch thickness, the hardening
process is completed.
THE FULLING PROCESS.
The fulling process, which follows the hardening,
consists mainly in rolling and kneading the sheet
over a round stick, great care being taken that it is
always saturated with soap.
This kneading process is continued until each
sheet has shrunk to the proper size and attained the
necessary firmness.
The water and soap in the now finished sheet is
extracted with the aid of a centrifugal machine, and
the sheets are then exposed to a heat of 150 to 200
degrees for the final drying.
The above described process is very crude and
consequently unreliable, making it almost impossible
to have two sheets alike, because at almost every
stage guesswork is the only guide, there being no
scientific basis for any part of the working.
In 1874 Alfred Dolge invented a process by which
the wool is fed through the cards in accordance with
a correct mathematical calculation, so as to form on
an apron the correct thickness and taper required.
• The card delivers the fine webs upon an endless
apron which passes through two rows of oscilleiing
rollers, which rollers have the same effect as the
oscillating platen in the old process, working how-
ever with much greater nicety, and since the tem-
perature can easily be kept even all over the ma-
chine, each web as it comes off the carding machine
is closely felted on to the other, so that when the
sheet is finished, the inner part of the sheet will be
as well felted together as the outer parts.
SIX SHEETS AT ONCE.
While in the old process of hardening on the
platen only one sheet could be done at a time, this
endless apron used on the roller hardener makes it
possible to form and harden six sheets at one time.
These six sheets contain enough felt for about 100
sets of piano hammers, and consequently a positive
uniformity is assured under all circumstances for
100 sets of hammers made out of such a sheet of felt.
From this hardening machine the sheets are trans-
ferred to a rotary fulling mill, which fulls or shrinks
the felt up to its proper length; after this the large
sheet is cut into six single sheets, which are then
fulled to their proper width in so-called hammer
mills, so constructed that the tenor part gets com-
paratively harder worked than the bass in order to
attain the relatively greater firmness required for the
brilliant tenor hammers as compared to the bass
hammers of a piano.
Since piano hammer felt has necessarily to be
made out of the finest and most carefully selectee
Merino wools, and in the process of manufacturing
very expensive machinery has to be used, it naturj
ally commands the highest prices of any kind of felj
made, which accounts for the high cost of the fin]
ished piano hammer.
In the early days of piano building the hammed
were covered with elk or deer skin; later on th
of the elk and deer skin. The smallest hammei
made at present has a felt covering of not less thai
34 in. thick.
LEATHER-COVERED HAMMERS.
While the old style leather covered hammer!
could easily be made by hand, the present style rel
quires most complicated and very powerful machinef
to glue this heavy felt on to the wooden mouldings
Several firms make a specialty of covering har
mers for the piano trade, and many piano mam
facturers make their own hammers, but the gre<
majority of hammers are made by the felt mam
facturers.
Every piano manufacturer has his own ideas
to the size, form and weight of his hammers, accorc
ing to the particular scale which he has designed ft
his pianos, which fact complicates the manufac
ture of piano hammers, and makes a standardizinl
of form or shape impossible. Each make of pianl
requires an individuality in the making of pianl
hammers, and the cost of the piano hammer therq
fore depends not only on the quality of felt used, bij
even more upon the special requirements as
weight, size and form.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
PRESTO
belongs to them. But the question as to the smallest piano store in
the world would not be so creditable, so the answer might not be
forthcoming. The smallest store of any kind in the world is at
Columbus Circle, in New York, a city noted for the vast number of
its "vest-pocket" stores, owing to congestion and consequent high-
rental values of space. This smallest store is a fruit shop, occupying a
space twelve feet long and two feet wide, and the rental is $100 a
week.
* * *
Mr. C. B. Evans, Chicago financial writer, classifies three types
of working people with reference to the uses they make of cash:
"Persons of sense, persons of no sense and persons of nonsense. The
first class use savings banks, then pass on to bond or stock; the second
class save never; the third class buy gewgaws." When one of the
second class fortunately gets into the piano installment purchaser
class, he often finds it a means towards qualifying for first class. Be-
cause of the third class named by Mr. Evans the bumstencil piano
became a problem in the trade.
* * *
Argentina makes a few commodities and is careful about for-
eign attempts to undersell by the price-cutting method in the home
market. An anti-dumping bill has been presented to the Argentine
Chamber of Deputies whereby all foreign goods entering in+o compe-
tition with domestic goods and sold at a price lower than their selling
price in the country of origin at the time of exportation, shall be sub-
ject to a surtax equal to the difference in the selling price increased
by 30 per cent. The South American republic has named an effective
method for keeping tab on the dumpers.
* * *
There is a relation between national and universal happenings
and piano trade events. The Autopiano Company, New York, is such
a believer in this theory that it issues a weekly news letter to its
dealers. The New York manufacturers hold that momentous political
occurrences react on business, the piano business as well as the others;
that "issues" in the making or made affect the national life and so
the affairs of business. The Autopiano Company's letter is a pres-
entation of the best "news prophecy" available in Washington and
elsewhere.
* * *
The spiel of the piano salesman is sometimes original and in-
genious and sometimes it is made up of what one sales manager calls
"mouthfuls of old stuff." One classic condemned to the cannery is
"This piano is so good it won't need tuning," or words to that effect.
This habit of the blithe salesman is alluded to in a recent bulletin of
the Gulbransen-Dickinson Co., Chicago, which says the statement
March 25, 1920.
should be turned completely around to the frank one: "Because your
piano is a good one, it deserves and needs tuning."
* * *
The president of the Chicago Piano & Organ Association, Mr.
Adam Schneider, believes it is the duty of every member to be present
at the monthly meetings of the association. And in pointing out the
plain duty, Mr. Schneider also reminds members that it is a pleasant
one. A formal luncheon is usually an accompaniment to the business
of the gatherings. The significance of the reminder is obvious when
Mr. Schneider's genius as a menu constructor is considered.
Last week's issue of the Saturday Evening Post contains another
of the instructive advertising pages of the Gulbransen-Dickinson Com-
pany, Chicago, from which every subscriber of that widely-read
weekly will learn some important facts about the functions of player-
piano pedals in general and the Gulbransen player pedals in particu-
lar. The art of the ad is in the clever manner in which a technical
fact is treated. More than a million people will learn from it the
peculiar merits of the Gulbransen "pedal touch."
* * *
The problem that stands out from all the others today is that
of increasing the production of American products. It is one that
concerns the piano industry as well as all others. The fact is recog-
nized in the preparations for the eighth annual meeting of the Cham-
ber of Commerce of the United States of America to be held in
Atlantic City, next month. The theme of the meeting is to be "In-
creased Production" and the subject will be considered in all its
hearings.
Dead timber is so regrettably common in editorial chairs that the
discovery of a "live wire" is consoling aand refreshing. C. M. Tre-
maine, director of the National Bureau for the Advancement of Music,
has discovered a music page conductor in Atlanta, Ga., whom he
characterizes as a "live wire" who has been quick to grasp the pos-
sibilities of the music page in the Atlanta Herald in exerting a pow-
erful influence in the city's musical development.
If some of the piano sale prospects are hanging fire, or the player-
piano instalments acting like the well-known molasses in winter, put
it down to the income tax. When a man with a $3,500 net income
has to pay $175 of it in State and Federal taxes in these days of high
rents and foods, it means that somebody has got to wait for hisj
money.
:|; ;|<
>|:
It sounds paradoxical to say that a good many advertising writers|
would say more if they said less.
PIANO FELTS AND HOW THEY ARE MADE
(Continued from page 5.)
the wool fibre close together without the aid of any
adhesive material or substance.
When the sheets are thus formed, they are felted,
or rather hardened down on a steam heated iron
platen, either by a man working over it with his
hands, or by a wooden cover, having an oscillating
motion. Since the side of the sheet which lays on
the steam heated platen will naturally harden quicker
than the side on which the top works, it is neces-
sary to turn the sheet over quite often, in order to
get both sides of the sheet equally hardened as far
as possible with such a process.
In hardening the thickness of the sheet is reduced
from the original ten inches to about one inch in
bass, and just as soon as the sheet has been worked
down to that one inch thickness, the hardening
process is completed.
THE FULLING PROCESS.
The fulling process, which follows the hardening,
consists mainly in rolling and kneading the sheet
over a round stick, great care being taken that it is
always saturated with soap.
This kneading process is continued until each
sheet has shrunk to the proper size and attained the
necessary firmness.
The water and soap in the now finished sheet is
extracted with the aid of a centrifugal machine, and
the sheets are then exposed to a heat of 150 to 200
degrees for the final drying.
The above described process is very crude and
consequently unreliable, making it almost impossible
to have two sheets alike, because at almost every
stage guesswork is the only guide, there being no
scientific basis for any part of the working.
In 1874 Alfred Dolge invented a process by which
the wool is fed through the cards in accordance with
a correct mathematical calculation, so as to form on
an apron the correct thickness and taper required.
• The card delivers the fine webs upon an endless
apron which passes through two rows of oscilleiing
rollers, which rollers have the same effect as the
oscillating platen in the old process, working how-
ever with much greater nicety, and since the tem-
perature can easily be kept even all over the ma-
chine, each web as it comes off the carding machine
is closely felted on to the other, so that when the
sheet is finished, the inner part of the sheet will be
as well felted together as the outer parts.
SIX SHEETS AT ONCE.
While in the old process of hardening on the
platen only one sheet could be done at a time, this
endless apron used on the roller hardener makes it
possible to form and harden six sheets at one time.
These six sheets contain enough felt for about 100
sets of piano hammers, and consequently a positive
uniformity is assured under all circumstances for
100 sets of hammers made out of such a sheet of felt.
From this hardening machine the sheets are trans-
ferred to a rotary fulling mill, which fulls or shrinks
the felt up to its proper length; after this the large
sheet is cut into six single sheets, which are then
fulled to their proper width in so-called hammer
mills, so constructed that the tenor part gets com-
paratively harder worked than the bass in order to
attain the relatively greater firmness required for the
brilliant tenor hammers as compared to the bass
hammers of a piano.
Since piano hammer felt has necessarily to be
made out of the finest and most carefully selectee
Merino wools, and in the process of manufacturing
very expensive machinery has to be used, it naturj
ally commands the highest prices of any kind of felj
made, which accounts for the high cost of the fin]
ished piano hammer.
In the early days of piano building the hammed
were covered with elk or deer skin; later on th
of the elk and deer skin. The smallest hammei
made at present has a felt covering of not less thai
34 in. thick.
LEATHER-COVERED HAMMERS.
While the old style leather covered hammer!
could easily be made by hand, the present style rel
quires most complicated and very powerful machinef
to glue this heavy felt on to the wooden mouldings
Several firms make a specialty of covering har
mers for the piano trade, and many piano mam
facturers make their own hammers, but the gre<
majority of hammers are made by the felt mam
facturers.
Every piano manufacturer has his own ideas
to the size, form and weight of his hammers, accorc
ing to the particular scale which he has designed ft
his pianos, which fact complicates the manufac
ture of piano hammers, and makes a standardizinl
of form or shape impossible. Each make of pianl
requires an individuality in the making of pianl
hammers, and the cost of the piano hammer therq
fore depends not only on the quality of felt used, bij
even more upon the special requirements as
weight, size and form.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).