Arrival

ARRIVAL
MANY LINEAR FEET OF MELLOTRON
FUN WITH NEON

Mt. Mansfield in the clouds
Mt. Mansfield with its head in the clouds

Roadside rivulet on Route 108 - Smuggler's Notch - Vermont

Melting snow keeps the roadside streams running
(click for a larger image)

Your Webmaster had an uneventful three or so hour drive (about 225 miles) from Boston to the Korb Residence in Vermont. But this time he chanced taking Route 108 up through Smuggler's Notch, and, despite some lingering snow, this interesting route was open and provided a quick and very scenic shortcut.

Route 108 is pretty neat--as you go through the notch, you reach a section of narrow roadway a little more than one lane wide where you have to wind your way through boulders. It's a good thing the road wasn't heavily traveled that day!

Jerry's place is probably fourth behind the Tokyo Mellotron Studio, Streetly, and Mellotron Archives for "linear feet of 'tron". This weekend there were seven Mellotrons in attendance.

Mellotrons await the start of MONEYPIT April 2005

	Jerry's Mark I Julia
	The Mooatron
	The JK-MK6
	Jerry's M400 (not in the above photo)
	Jerry's M300 (upstairs)

Mellotron M400s in a row waiting for repair

Also in for the weekend, the (un)Sound Sales-bodged M400s:

	#310, Dave Schwartz's machine
	#500, owned by Bernie Kornowicz

...both of which Jerry will be working on for our friends on the Mellotronists list.

And, yes, these are unSoundly bodged.

Click on the above, and you may notice that the tape take-up box is too low. Fastening the take-up box to the frame is a Sound Sales bodge. When that take-up box cover is set in place, the tapes are pushed down by the front edge of the cover.

Meanwhile you can click the above to see what one former owner did to stop the motor from flopping around.

A good start...

Mellotron head block adjustment by Streetly
Both M400s had headblock azimuth adjustments done by Martin at Streetly

FUN WITH NEON

Jerry found an old neon strobe light on EBay and had to have it.

Jerry Korb and the neon strobe light

This light was made in the 40s and still works great, although what the heck would you ever use it for...?

Neon strobe light checking the Mellotron flywheel speed

Oh, right---checking the speed of your Mellotron. :-)

Why are there two sets of dots on some flywheels? Jerry figured that out. If you put the neon strobe on and watch the flywheel, one set of dots may be properly frozen, but the other will still move around. Change the strobe speed to a harmonic, and the other set of dots may be frozen but the first jumping around. For the correct flywheel speed, both sets of dots must be frozen in the strobe light.

(Thank you, Dave, for the use of your machine during the science project section of our MONEYPIT adventure. No Mellotrons were harmed during the proceedings.)

Jimmy and Nancy arrived later on in the day, and it was good to see them. It's a long drive from Pennsylvania. So while they're chilling out, let's review where FX Console #10006 has been and the restoration process. --->