Cylinder Box Exhibit Room

The cylinder musical box sounds its melody and accompaniment on tuned steel teeth in a comb. The teeth are plucked by pins set into the cylinder in an arrangement calculated to produce a specific tune. The cylinder is turned slowly by the force of a spring motor whose speed is controlled by a governor (a spinning fan that maintains a steady rate by the resistance of the air). Without the governor, all of the power of the spring motor would be released at once, causing the cylinder to run at a high rate of speed that would likely not sound very well, and would most certainly damage the teeth in the comb.

The pinned cylinders usually contain more than one tune and in some cases up to 12 tunes on a single revolution. as the cylinder completes its rotation, it is moved sideways to present another set of pins to the comb, thus another tune. After all the tunes have played, the cylinder moves back to its original position and begins playing the first tune once again. In some boxes, the cylinder can be interchanged, providing a greater variety of tunes than a single cylinder offers.

Here's a diagram of a typical cylinder musical box movement.

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