US1797741A - Automatic action for player pianos - Google Patents

Description

March 24, 1931. E. s. VOTEY AUTOMATIC ACTION FOR PLAYER PIANOS Filed Dec. 12, 1928 6 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR ATTORNEY March 24, 1931. E. s. VOTEY AUTOMATIC ACTION FOR PLAYER PIANOS Filed Dec. 12, 192 6 Sheets-Sheet 2 ATTORNEY March 24, 1931.

E. S. VOTEY AUTOMATIC ACTION FOR PLAYER PIANOS" Filed Dec.

1928 s Sheets-Sheet 3 M A m Kxx ATTORNEY March 24, 1931. E. s., VOTEY AUTOMATIC ACTION FOR PLAYER PIANOS INVENTOR m G A O fi wq v w m o 7 I ATTORNEY March 24, 1931. E. s. VOTEY 1,797,741

AUTOMATIC ACTION FOR PLAYER PIANQS Filed Dec. 12. 192 6 Sheets-Sheet 5 F'E' l].

M .29v P J E] N Fig-.16?

i 1 I I z o v o o 7 1 ATTORNEY March 1931- E. s. VOTEY 1,797,741

AUTOMATIC ACTION FOR PLAYER PIANOS Filed Dec. 12. 19:2 6 Sheets-Sheet 6 flak Imam"? i i 9 W H m,

ATTORNEY Patented Mar. 24, 1931 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE EDWIN SCOTT VOTEY, OF SUMMIT, NEE! JERSEY, ASSIGNOR TO THE AEOLIAN COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF CONNECTICUT AUTOMATIC ACTION FOR PLAYER PIANOS Application filed December 12, 1928.

My present invention relates to improvements in automatic actions for player p anos. By my invention I achieve the followlng:

First, small size and compactness wherebyconnection with the drawings showing two preferred embodiments of my invention.

Figs. 1 to 9 show the first embodiment. In these Fig. 1 is a fore and aft vertical sectional and elevational view through the front half of a grand automatic piano embodying the automatic action of my present invention;

Fig. 2 serves to indicate how much smaller is the space occupied by my automatic action than the regular action in use today; Fig. 3

is a fragmentary underneath plan view of my automatic action; Fig. 4 is a fragmentary rear elevation of the same; Fig. 5 is an end elevation looking at the left end of one of the levers in Fig. 3; Fig. 6 is an underneath plan view to show the adaptability of the action for adjustment to suit any scale of piano hammer action; Fig. 7 is a fragmentary side elevation of the free end of one of the levers shown connected to a vertical wire element, the latter being an intermediate part between the striker pnuematic and the hammer action unit commonly used in the art; Fig. 8 is a fragmentary fore and aft vertical section through an upright player piano showing the foregoing first form of my action applied thereto; Fig. 9 is a transverse vertical section on the lines 9-9 in Fig. 2 through one of my striker pneumatics.

The remaining figures show a second embodiment of my automatic action. In these Fig. 10 is a fragmentary fore and aft vertical sectional and elevational view through a grand player piano containing this second embodiment of my automatic action; Fig. 11 is a side elevation of one of the bell crank levers detached; Fig. 12 is a perspective view of one of the riders detached; Fig. 13 is a Serial No. 325,455.

fragmentary fore and aft vertical section through an upright piano containing this second embodiment of my automatic action; Fig. 14 is a fragmentary rear elevation of said automatic action; and Figs. 15 and 16 respectively show other forms of upright piano actions with my automatic action applied thereto. The same numerals refer to the same or similar parts throughout.

I will now describe my invention with particular reference to the devices of the drawings whose details, however, are to be regarded as illustrative and not as limiting the invention except as required by the claims in view of the prior art. as

I do not use in my automatic action the universally used type of striker pneumatic with its movable board hinged to its fixed board. In other words, the prior art pneumatic is like that shown at 1 in Fig. 2. Instead I use a pneumatic S of a different ty e wherein the movable board 2 is substantial y parallel to the fixed board 3 instead of inclined as in the hinged pneumatic. The parallel boards in my pneumatic S are connected by pneumatic fabric 4 equally on all four sides of the pneumatic instead of only on three sides as in the hinged pneumatic, whereby said fabric sides of my pneumatic are ideally subject to the action of atmospheric pressure for the operation of the pneumatic. Furthermore, in the hinged pneumatic the fabric at the sides, the nearer said sides approach the hinge, folds in so completely during collapse that the atmospheric 85 pressure cannot act effectively upon. it. This I find has two consequences. First, the area of the movable board of the hinged pneumatic must be kept relatively large to compensate for this ineffectiveness of the fabric sides of the pneumatic; and secondly, the hinged pneumatic loses too much power as it collapses. As distinguished from this, my striker pneumatic, because it is adapted to be made with relatively deep fabric sides 4 fully effective on all sides of the pneumatic, does not lose so rapidly in power and speed as it collapses through its working stroke; and moreover, the area of said fabric sides is so extensively and effectively exposed to 1m the atmospheric pressure that the area of the movable board can be considerably reduced relatively to that of the hinged pneumatic, which means that for equal widths of movable board, its length in my pneumatic can be greatly shortened, thereby achieving marked improvement in compactness not only for the striker pneumatics but for the entire automatic action, and with capability for improved power and speed.

In the hinged striker pneumatic, the movable board 5 of the pneumatic is itself the lever for delivering the power of the pneumatic to the hammer action, said movable board being a lever of the third order wherein the fulcrum is at the hinged end of the movable board and wherein the resistance is at the opposite end, and wherein the power is applied by the pneumatic to the portion of the board intermediate said ends.

In my new striker pneumatic, the movable board is not a lever at all. Instead, I provide a separate lever 6 operatively connected. to substantially the center of the area of the movable board. In Figs. 1 to 8, this is a lever of the third order, and in Figs. to 16 is a bell crank lever of a different order, which latter, if anything, I prefer because it is adapted to deliver the full power of the striker pneumatic without loss of speed and indeed with increase of speed if desired.

The main difference between the illustrated first and second embodiments of my invention is that in the first Figs. 1 to 9the two parallel tiers or stacks of striker pneumatics are arranged vertically over each other in back of the valve chest 7 containing the valves of said pneumatics; whereas in the second embodiment, Figs. 10 to 16, the stacks are arranged horizontally in front of each other with the penumatics collapsing in a horizontal direction instead of vertically, the stacks being located on top of thevalve chest 7. The latter embodiment alsoreadily permits the use of hell crank levers 29 to attack the hammer actions with the inherent advantages of said levers as already indicated.

Having made the foregoing general eX- planation, I will now proceed to the details. Fig. 1 indicates a grand player piano with key-bed 9, piano key 10, hammer action 11 including wippen 12 and metal extension 12 from each wippen, string plate 13, piano string 14., tracker bar 15, music-roll 16, and take-up spool 17.

My striker pneumatics are shown at S, one of the upper pneumatics in Figs. 1 and 8 being shown. in side elevation and one of the lower pneumatics in fore and aft vertical section. As usual, there is, of course, a striker pneumatic for each hammer action, said pneumatics being horizontally arranged in two parallel rows or stacks, one over the other as shown. The pneumatic collapse verticall in the first type of my action. There the fired boards 3 are uppermost and are secured to the underside of supporting bars 18, which latter in turn are secured to the valve chest" 7. Said bars contain the regular wind ways for operatively connecting the striker pneumatics to their respective valves in the valve chest 7 of which with this type of pneumatic there need be only one valve for each pneumatic. This valve chest extends horizontally across thepiano over the keys and in front of the hammer actions. In fore and aft cross section said valve chest is an elongated rectangle with its long sides vertically disposed. The details of the valves within this valve chest need not be gone into, nor the details of the pneumatic passages and connections which they control between the tracker bar ducts, the outside atmosphere, the exhaustinducing means, and the striker pneumatics, etc., because all of these are or may be of well understood or any suitable preferred construction in the player piano art.

Although there are two horizontal rows of striker pneumatics, there is only a single horizontal row of levers 6, one for each pneumatic located under them. All of said levers 6 extend in fore and aft parallel lines with their front ends fulcrumed to the underside of the valve chest 7 and with their rear free. ends extending underneath the wippen extensions 12 of the respective hammer actions. My striker pneumatics S are operatively connected to the respective levers 6 by suitable connections between substantially the centers of the areas of the movable boards of the pneumatics, with suitable points on the levers intermediate their ends. One good form for each of these connections consists (Figs. 1, 2 and 4) of a freshly shellacked rod 19 screwed through the center of the given movable board, said rod being provided with a nut 20 on the face of the board inside the pneumatic. Fig. 4 (compare Fig. 2) shows a right angled bayonet-like bend 21 forming the free end of each rod, this being a handy means for making pivotal connection between the rod and the lever by the insertion of said bayonetlike end through a horizontal hole in the lever.

The rear elevation (Fig. 4) shows how the striker pneumatics'in one stack break joints with those in the other so that the longer rods 19 from the upper stack pneumatics can pass down between the lower stack pneumatics. Intermediately said longer rods pass through holes 22 (Figs. 3 and 4) in the lower bar 18.

The levers 6 may be conveniently formed out of sheet metal, each lever having a central vertically disposed web for its body portion 1.; located between right angled twists b forming the horizontally disposed end portions 0 and (Z. The end portion 0 has upturned sides 7 forming a shallow trough with notches in the tops of the sides f to receive down into them the pintle wire 23 suitably supported in lugs 24 on the valve chest. A

leaf spring 25 in each trough riveted to the bottom thereof at 26 has its free end extending over said pintle wire and thence beyond the end of the trough for handy manipulation to pivotally attach the lever to and detach it from the pintle Wire. The free end of each lever may be provided with a noisedeadening felt or leather pad 27, as shown in Fig. 2, or may be provided merely with a vertical hole as in Fig. 7 to loosely receive the screw-threaded end of a vertical rod 28 provided above and below with leather nuts, the rod being operatively related in any well known manner with the hammer action unit to actuate same from the upward movement of the lever due to the pneumatic collapse of the connected striker pneumatic.

The underneath plan view in Fig. 6 of the metal levers 6 shows their relation to the wippens 12 of the hammer actions and especially shows how during installation the vertical body portions a may be bentlaterally to the right or left if necessary to locate the free ends of the levers operatively under the related wippens or the equivalent operative parts of the hammer actions. In other words, my automatic action is readily conformable to any scale of piano hammer action.

Preferably, as shown, the levers 6 bow downwardly at the center and, therefore, upwardly at their ends, especially at their free ends, to more advantageously attack the hammer actions; and for the same reason. I

i prefer to set the striker pneumatics in this first embodiment of my action so that their boards incline somewhat upwardly and rearwardly as shown in Figs. 1, etc.

Fig. 8 shows the application of this same first embodiment to a miniature upright piano. In view of the foregoing, the figure is self-explanatory, the same numerals being used to indicate like or similar parts as in the earlier figures. This figure shows how my action, due to its compactness, readily adapts itself for use even with this miniature upright.

Fig. 2 shows in dotted lines the smallest hinged striker pneumatic that will do the work at all comparable with my parallel board striker pneumatic, the latter being shown drawn to scale in full lines. This figure shows better than any description the saving of space effected by my invention.

Describing now the second type of my action shown in Fig. 10, et seq., here the valve chest 7 (Fig. 10) lies horizontally on. its long side and supports on its top the two stacks of my parallel board pneumatics S-S, one stack in front of the other, with the pneumatics working horizontally, said pneumatics being supported by their fixed boards on the bars 18, which latter in turn are secured to the valve chest 7. Wind ways (not shown) in these bars 18 operatively connect the pneumatics with the valves, etc., in the valve chest.

Bell crank levers 29, one for each striker pneumatic S, operatively connect said pneumatics with the respective hammer action units 11. These levers are suitably fulcrummed at m to the rear lower corner of the valve chest with vertical arms n extending up to the striker pneumatics S to whose movable boards, preferably at their centers, are attached the operative connections 19 which are or may be in all respects like the same connections 19 heretofore described, with said rods 19 preferably projecting rigidly from the movable boards and with the free ends of said rods making pivotal connection with the respective bell crank levers. This kind of operative connection 19 supports its pneumatic against sagging and, therefore, supports it in position for its proper operation. The other arms of the bell cranks extend horizontally under the extensions 12 from the wippens 12 or under the wippens 12 direct (Fig. 16), or under lugs 30 (Fig. 15) on the stickers of the hammer action in Fig. 15. These bell cranks being made of metal, their horizontal arms are readily bendable laterally to make them conform to the scale of the hammer actions.

Fig. 11 shows one of the bell crank levers detached. The row of holes p in the horizontal arms serve to attach a rider 31 shown in perspective detached in Fig. 12. The rider consists of an inverted U-shaped piece adapted to straddle and rest on the horizontal arm of the given lever and to be secured in the different positions of adjustment indicated by the holes p (Fig. 11) and to be secured in the selected position best suited for operating the given piano action by means of a pin passed through the aligned holes in the lugs of the rider and through the selected hole 10 in the lever arm. A pad 31 of noise-deadening material is secured to the top of the rider. If the horizontal arms of the lever are unnecessarily long in the given installation, they can besnipped off.

The fragmentary rear elevation of the pneumatic stacks in Fig. 14 indicates how the pneumatics break joints and how the rod connections 19 from the remote stack pneumatics located behind the bar 18 pass through holes 22 in said bar, this being the bar which supports the pneumatics of the near stack.

Figs. 13, 15 and 16 show this second horizontal embodiment of my automatic action applied to various sizes and kinds of upright pianos. The parts are essentially the same as heretofore and need no further description.

The differences in these piano actions call for modifications in the elbow levers whose horizontal arms in Fig. 15 are relatively short and in'Fig. 16 relatively long. The riders 31 in Fig. 16 are extra high. These and the other figures serve to illustrate the unusual capacity for adaptation of the automatic acand same parts might be used Without others,

all coming within the scope and spirit of the claims which follow The expression fabric in the, specification and, claims is used in a generalized sense for any flexible air-tight material used for covering pneumatics in this art.

The expression substantially parallel fixed and movable boards used in the specification and claims; for defining the pneumatits is used with the intended emphasis not so much of the parallelism of the boards as upon the fact that as: the pneumatic collapses the movable board moves towards the fixed board in a more or less parallel relationship as distinguished from the manner of movement of boards that are hinged. together, the

- virtue of said parallel mode of operation be ing that. it provides effectively active fabric everywhere around the pneumatic as herein set forth.

lVhat I claim is:

1. In player mechanism for actuating piano hammer-actions the combination of striker pneumatics each having substantially parallel fixed and movable boards which are fabric-connected on all sides; fulcrumed levers having free ends for operating the hammer actions of the piano mechanism; and 0p erative connections between said levers and substantially the centers of the faces of the movable boards of said strikerpneumatics; riders for engaging the hammer-actions, one on the free end of each lever, and means for securing said riders in diflerent positions therealong to engage said hammer actions. a

2. In player mechanism for actuating piano hammer-actions the combination of striker pneumatics each having substantially parallel vertically disposed fixed and movable boards which are fabridoonnected on all sides, said pneumatics being in two stacks, one stack in front of the other on top of a horizontally disposed valve box containing valve mechanism for the operation of said pneumatics; said valve box; fulcrumed bell crank levers with vertical and horizontal arms, the latter extending into operative relation with the hammer actions of the piano 7 mechanism; and connections between the vertical arms of said levers and substantially the centers of the faces of the movable boards of the striker pneumatics.

3. In player mechanism for actuating piano hammer-actions the combination of striker pneumatics each having substantially parallel vertically disposed fixed and movable boards which are fabric-connected on all 1,: evgzai sides, said neumatics .being in two stacks, one stackin front of the other; fulcrumed bell crank lever with vertical and horizontal arms, the latter extending into operative relation with the hammer actions of the piano York and State of New York this 11th day of;

December, A. D. 1928. Y

, EDWIN SCOTT VQTE'Yr

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