Well, I thought I would post this here first. I uploaded some pictures of a Virgil "Practice-Clavier" from about 1890, which I have been working on restoring. I posted picftures in the photos section. I got it from the piano technician at the music school I worked at, and it was in PIECES. Some of the wood was hopelessly cracked by the desert heat and the legs were badly abused. Luckily, with a little cleaning and WD40, the keyboard feels fantastic. It has adjustable action - hence the "practice-calvier" and can feel like a piano or a harpsichord or a super heavy workout... Anyway, there are pins on the inside that lift up when the keys are struck. I hope to find an economical way to turn these into buttons, process it all into a microcontroller and turn this guy into something that can talk to my computer and synths. I'll be experimenting some time soon -- the first priority is to restore the woodwork itself, though. Any suggestion on switch types? Snap action switches occur to me, but I think that miniature tactile switches would also work with the small pins that lift. Or perhaps just some metal to metal contact to close the circuit... Lorin
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My antique work...
2006-08-05 by Lorin Edwin Parker
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