Well…this has been an informative day.  I began today with the intention of mapping out the plan, visually,  of the restoration process. I realized I had made a couple of assumptions. The first is that I would remember all the details of my piano, but alas it was not to be and I had to go inspect the actions again.

The second assumption was that the few sketchy details I had seen to date in old periodicals convinced me in a cursory fashion that I had a Standard player action on my hands.  But there were some things that didn’t jive – the action did not all match up and there was a “Theme” function that was never mentioned in Standard literature. The Theme was a creation of the Aeolian Company.

So, I took the path of least resistance and crowdsourced some answers on the Facebook. There was not a consensus, except that most had not seen a player action quite like this.  Some folks in the Player Piano Talk group recognized some features an “Autopiano” action, particularly with respect to the motor, tracking device and other details of the pump. However others, including John Tuttle, pointed out that the governor and transmission were not an exact match to the Autopiano archetype. Tony Law of Ottawa mentioned that it was similar to an action he had seen in a Weber brand piano, which may have been a Sterling Action & Keys brand player.

Upon opening the valve chest, there are further clues which point back to Autopiano, or in fact “Auto Deluxe” (the former being the piano brand name, the latter being the action brand name).  The screw on, stem-style secondary valves were used almost exclusively by Auto Deluxe, and not at all by Standard, at least this is my understanding. So until further notice, the working organology is “Auto Deluxe variant”!

At this point it is really academic; the main goal now is to plan and move forward. I need to figure out all the features this action has, how it works and map it, before complete disassembly.

To be continued!