Boogie Woogie on the Player Piano 

No kidding, right? They are loads of fun, especially when company comes over.

it resembles the mic" rithem *? of a train to me .......

wurly164 ok

Kyle Biggs I'm pretty sure you can buy new electronic pianolas for thousands of dollars that read it straight from your PC ☺️

Nope, thus the player!

LOL, I wish I played piano. I'm sort of a guitarist lol when I can find the time. Great video and thanks for posting it.

It is all mechanical, powered by vacuum generated by pedaling. Quite ingenious!

BTW, here is a video of the air motor that drives the roll after I rebuilt it. Note the vacuum hose operating the bellows that drive the crankshaft. Quite clever. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SEpqvNCVDjY.html

You might try craigslist. In my area, there seems to be one for sale from time to time. You definitely want to find one locally. I got one off of eBay once and the cost of transporting was greater than the selling price!

Thanks...good idea!

Yes! The pedals are attached to bellows that create a vacuum which runs the whole thing. Fascinating stuff!

I loved your video so I went to my piano teacher and I want to learn it!

then why do you always see these pianos playing themselves without someone peddling

Some player pianos have had kits installed that provide the vacuum that is normally provided by the pedalling.

It's a bit of magic, but you can read all about it here: www.pianola.com/ppworks.htm

Yes, it is actually labelled as a "Registering Piano". There is one hole on the tracker bar that controls the sustain pedal, but it is not working. I am currently rebuilding the air motor, so that it will roll more smoothly. The fabric in the bellows gets stiff and prevents smooth operation. The sustain pedal bellow needs to be recovered as well. Glad you enjoyed it!

+Isaac Von Gürtberg The piano mechanism works on vacuum created in the system by the pedals. It is very interesting!

Don Erwin Thank you. But between my post and today I found the answer on the internet and it is as you say. It was very confusing because I found a lot of people answering anything on forums but not the answer of my question^^. One mechanism I saw is the following: A pump push air in a chamber which has a constant pressure because of a spring and a safety valve. Then the air go through very little pipes which are ending in front of the paper. Then, depending on the presence of holes, the air get out of the pipe more easily, and the pressure inside the pipe goes down. Now these little pipes are also connected to a box which is commanding the opening and the closing of bigger pipes (which are not the ones I talked before) depending on the pressure inside the little pipes. These bigger pipes are connected to the air chamber in one side and to organ pipes in the other side and between the two ending their is the command box I talked about. Then, when their is a hole in the paper, it commands via the little pipes a corresponding big pipe to blow in the organ.

+Isaac Von Gürtberg These are amazing machines. Here is a video of a test after rebuilding the air motor using a standard vacuum cleaner to provide the vacuum. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SEpqvNCVDjY.html

Don Erwin ^^

Nope! It was a hot August day when I made the video.

Since I posted this video, I have rebuilt the air motor, which has helped quite a bit. Still need to replace the fabric on the main belows, though.

Don Erwin I would also be thinking about asking a well trained piano technician to do regulation on the piano to make it play more evenly.