Duo Art
Well I shall have the honour of posting the first topic in this section! I have recently purchased an American manufactured Steck (Aeolian) Duo Art pedal upright. I bought it on ebay and travelled down from Northeast Scotland to Blackpool to collect it. Since its arrival- I have thoroughly cleaned it out with airline and vacuum cleaner. Cleaned and polished the case Had it tuned and some regulation done on it. The player action doesn't work because the spoolbox drive pinion has split down its length and just spins round on the shaft. Fortunately I have located a clock builder in Sutherland (even further north than me!) who can make me a new one! The stack pneumatics seem to be in amazing condition given its age and they all seem to work. The tracker bar rubber tubing seems pretty good too. Only the large bore piping is definitely had it. It is rock hard and loose on all the connections. I have obtained some new Silicone Rubber tubing to replace it with. I shall replace the tracker bar tubing at a later date - it looks rather tricky as it has a transposing tracker bar (or rather a sliding connector which connects to the tracker bar). It plays well as a piano which means I can resume my piano practice after many years! Does anyone have a Duo Art -*test*-('") roll? Andy

Hi andypandy92 1st of congratualtions on your ebay purchase it sounds terrific! Unfortunely i cant help with the Test roll (its something i will like to get myself in due course). From what i have read, duo-art tranposer tracker bars are quite rare so im interesting in learning how they actually work when they need the last 4 ends for information reading .....any chance of picture of the rear layout of this latter down the track ?. I have also noticed a (copy of ) Aeolian duo art 1927 service manual on ebay as well , i guess that is something all us DA"s should have on hand as well. I myself have a 1926 weber Duo-art reproducer upright :)

Hi, Congratulations Andy on your new purchase! If it is a pedal-electric player you will need a copy of the regular Duo-Art -*test*-('") roll. For pedal-only players there was a special "foot-blown" model -*test*-('") roll. Whilst that is rather scarce it is possible to use the regular full Duo-Art -*test*-('") roll and only use those portions that -*test*-('") the accompaniment dynamic sections - the foot-operated model not having theme dynamics fitted. For the original instructions for playing the foot -operated model click here (see the lower section of the article). I'll see if a copy of the roll can be got for you - let me know which type you need. sincerely Adam :D INFO ON DUO-ART TRANSPOSERS: A transposing bar on a Duo-Art is very neat. The bar is fixed in the spoolbox and does not move when you ratchet the transposer lever. At the rear the tubing feeds into a moving plate held tightly against the reverse of the tracker bar. The plate covers the central 80 note holes only and does not extend upwards to take in the Duo-Art control ports on the bar which are tubed in the normal fashion. The pneumatic stacks that these are fitted to are invariably 80 notes only (which is all that a Duo-Art roll plays anyhow). As the central 80 notes are shifted there is enough room (4 notes space at each end) to shift the notes but leave the themodist and sustain pedal ports unmoved. Shifting the bar the full 4 notes in each direction will reduce the playing scope on a Duo-Art roll to 76 notes. On a regular roll it still plays 80 notes however. The 4 notes you loose at the one end you gain at the other. The 4 note tracks at each end which were unplayable on an 80-note stack get shifted into the end 4 positions of the playable note scope. Most music doesn't use notes in these extremes in any event as you will be aware. As with all transposers it was only really intended for use with song and accompaniment rolls - it has no other purpose. There is very little reason anyone would otherwise want to change the key of a Duo-Art or regular roll popular or classical.

Duo Art Upright
Thanks guys! My pianola is a pedal only 1/2 Duo Art. I am intending at some point to convert it to full reproducing action so I am on the look out for either an expression box from a full reproducing action or drawings of the box so I can make one! Stuff does sometimes come up for sale on ebay - I hope its not from good instruments just being torn apart to sell the bits. Dan - Is yours a full reproducing instrument? Next time I have the action out (probably soon) as I have to fix a dodgy damper on the player action I will take some photos. Do you want High Res or Low Res? shots Adam - thanks for looking out for a -*test*-('") roll. Regards Andy

Hi Andy Any type of picture is fine by me , im interested in learning about your piece so only do when your ready. Also yes mine is a full reproducer and i do have a couple of pictures i can pass onto you.At present im in the process of making a video clip of the playing action , it was actually just filmed yesterday.Im awaiting a CD disk to load to my PC and then will edit the clips into proper storyline formats for those who are interested.It will be placed on You-Tube for easy viewing and i will leave a link here in due course. My other question is , if its 1/2 duo- art , does it need 1/2 duo-art rolls to play or is the coding on one end switched off ,as in not too tinkle the end keys? Send me a PM of your email address and i will send you some pictures if you like. Regards Daniel :)