Maly 7650

Maly 7650

Musikzettel

„[…] in Prag hat ein unbekannter Hersteller […]eine Jugendstilpostkarte aus Leipzig (!) für den Melodienvermerk verwendet.“ [Goldhoorn S. 108]

It was a welcome suprise to find the extremely rare box and restore its lost ability to perform the music. Unlike the great majority of Bohemian cartel-type movements, it was not made for a clock; it is mounted in its own original case.
The case differs from the usual Swiss design by having the sounding-boards base simply nailed on. To hide the joint a moulding is attached all around. Three wood blocks support the bedplate; they are glued to the base and also fixed with roundhead screws. To facilitate lifting, to allow egress of sound, and to save furniture from the protruding screws, feet are nailed to the corners of the base – they peep a bit coyly from beneath the moulding. The case and lid of softwood veneered all over without any inlay or stringing, and the lid edges are finished with a moulding roughly similar to that around the base. The simple design, together with the tune sheet being written in Czech, strongly suggest that this box was intended for the home market rather than export. With German spoken in Vienna and Czech predominating in Prague it is quite likely that this box was made by Rzebitschek in about 1890.
Technical Details
The cylinder is 9 by 1 5/8“ (23 by 4 cm). The comb has 77 teeth, track width is 0.019“ (0.48 mm). The bass teeth are at the governor end. Teeth 25 and 26 from the bass end are tuned to a, 440Hz, and their relative stiffness is 109, about the same as pre-1850 Swiss practice. There are no steel dampers; instead the bass end teeth have a flat in front of the lead weigth on which vellum dampers are glued. They are effective as the teeth are not stiff, but they have limited life.
The cylinder pins are about 0.012“ (0.30 mm) diameter and 0.05“ (1.3 mm) long, not raked. The cylinder has been repinned. Longer pins are one feature of Bohemian movements, and a narrow tune gap only one quarter of an inch. The cylinder is pinned to allow a surface speed of about 0.09“ (2.3 mm) per second, giving 55 seconds per cylinder revolution and 52 seconds per tune.
The cast iron bedplate is conventionally secured to wood blocks in the case by two countersunk screws at the winder end and one at the governor end. It has a decorative scallop all round the edges, rather like large machinery bedplates of the period. It was left in the „as cast“ condition, with no machining of the surface, so the seating of the governor and the four bearing brackets is only just adequate. The spring, winder, and cylinder assemblies are of conventional design except that the cylinder driving gear is brass, and pinned to the arbor; and the click springs are fixed with large screws, not dowelled. The gear ratio, endless to cylinder is 1728 to 1. There are no code numbers or letters on any components except for 7650 and 2005 on the winder.
The governor differs from the usual Swiss design in three details: the lower endless bearing is fixed, screwed to the governor body; the stop arm cach is a wire finger to catch the fan blade; and the blades are made from a brass block 1 ½ by 7/16 by 1/8“ (38 by 11 by 3 mm) thick, bored for a push fit on the endless and then each side filed away to leave blades about 0.04“ (1 mm) thick. The blade ends can be curved easily enough for speed adjustment.

Performance
The only basic trouble with No. 7650 is that it was inaccurately pinned. All six tunes have a lot of pins put of line, some as much as half the track width, though their timing position is accurate. It must have taken the original „justifier“ a lot of time to put the pins in line; and this job was shirked at repin, leaving some tunes badly garbled. Having got the pins in line (and I expect it took me twice as long as a patient Prague professional) the box plays well up to Swiss standards, but of course not as loudly as Swiss boxes of the 1880s due to the teeth being less stiff. If set for excessive lift, or set to play too fast, the bass teeth are not adequately damped by their vellum dampers.
The makers, aware of current Swiss and French standards, must have worried about volume which may have prompted them to insert a third block between the sounding board and the center of the bedplate under the comb. But the bedplate is only 13 ½“ (34 cm) long and the end supporting blocks are only 10 ¾“ (27 cm) apart, so there is scant technical backing for this idea. I could discern no difference in volume wether or not the third block was touching the bedplate – it wasn´t when I received it. The same devide is seen with more logic on some larger Swiss boxes and on some disc machines where it seems to help.
However, volume is perfectly adequate and the tune arrangements are attractive. Tune No. 2 is an endearing song from The Bartered Bride, here titled „Faithful“. Tune No. 4 is on more familiar ground with fairly vigorous Wagner. Though looking rather old fashioned by Swiss standards of 1890, the Bohemians turned out an attractive job – and still going strong a hundred years later, thank you.
(Bulleid, Technology, p. 42-45)