My pianola moves house

Warning:  this post contains confronting scenes of the manhandling of a pianola.

My pianola on the move

Pianolas are passed from one generation to the other - not necessarily because they are family heirlooms, but because the bottom fell out of the pianola market 50 years ago.

Back then, pianolas were the kareoke machines of the pre-electricity age, when people would stand around them and sing the words rolling by on the pianola roll.

[NOTE:  Like kareoke machines, pianolas or player pianos, were designed for people with no musical skills.  You could play them with your feet.  You inserted a music roll (a continuous sheet of paper rolled on to a spool) into the spool box, hooked the free end of the music sheet to the take-up spool, and started pumping with your feet.  The roll would unwind across a reading mechanism (called the tracker bar) and the music score, programmed onto the paper with a bunch of holes, would play.]

You pumped the pedals, and the pianola pumped out music, no hands.

It also gave you a damn good workout, and looked a lot classier than an exercise bike in the lounge room.

So I bought one.  Market research revealed that pianolas ceased production before one of the last wars, leaving only a second hand market.  You can find them in piano shops, reconditioned and ready to go, or in private homes, often in genteel decline and not so ready to go.

How to buy a second hand pianola

The market for pianolas thrives under P in the classified FOR SALE ads in the local newspaper.  Mine was for sale in a house nearby, at a price within my budget, so I gave it a test run.

The house was the bottom of a battle axe driveway.  The pianola was in the rumpus room in the lower level of the house.  It had that battered partied look, as pianolas do.

I play a roll or two, inspected its innards by lifting the top lid and peering down at the bellows which are its engine.  The owner threw in a full set of pianola rolls and the specialised sloped stool.

I paid a deposit, the rest to be paid when the pianola changed hands.

How to move a second hand pianola

Pianolas do not travel well.  Their little wheels are merely cosmetic because their stout wooden exteriors conceal a steel frame and massive mechanisms from the Sydney Harbour Bridge school of engineering.

One pianola weighs about the same as three conventional pianos.

It also could not negotiate spiral staircases, which was the internal entrance to its current residence.

How to move a second hand pianola by barge

The vendor informed me that the pianola could only leave the same way it had arrived: by barge.  The river lapped at the end of the back path, and a small wooden jetty offered itself as a mooring.

You can find barges listed in the telephone book.  The local barge person was not surprised at a pianola as cargo, so I tried not to be surprised at his fee, which was $100 per hour.

On top of that I had to engage pianola moving people who charged a flat $200.  They would liaise with the barge people so they could be picked up from the nearest loading dock where they would park their truck.

Always move your second hand pianola at high tide

Then there were the intangibles such as time and tide.  At low tide, when the river retreated and left behind a mud flat, the barge would have no access to the jetty.

The tide chart was consulted and we settled on a day with a high tide at 7am, and usually when there was little wind.  Calm waters were vital, as pianolas are not good sailors.

On the day I arrived at the house at 6.45am.  The river was mirror flat.  I was standing at the back door when the barge chugged along the river and tied up to the jetty.  On board were two barge people and two pianola movers.  Their truck waited at the nearest loading dock, about 10 minutes away as the boat goes.

The movers were, by necessity, large men - roughly two metres by two metres.  By contrast, the pianola looked dainty.

They shepherded it, on its silly wheels, to the back door.  Then they lay it on its side, mounted it onto a flat trolley and ushered it along the path to the jetty.

They made it look so easy, I wondered if I was getting my $200 worth.

Wheeling it along the footpath was the easy bit

The pianola then rumbled onto the jetty - trod the boards so to speak.  The wooden planks bowed under the combined weight of pianola and two pianola handles, and suddenly there was frailty in the air.

The planks of the jetty groaned

The planks groaned and the men moved with more urgency.  At the same time, the barge driver pulled the ropes tight, straining to hold the edge of the barge flush with the jetty.

The moment of truth: shifting the pianola from jetty to barge

Then the moment of truth.  The movers were actually sweating (at last, value for money), as they manouevred the pianola level with the barge which was floating half a metre below the level of the jetty.

There was a distinct sound of splintering from the jetty.

They steered the pianola sideways to the barge, and with much deep muttering - having revved themselves up to full power - they lowered it from jetty to barge.

As it hung weightily in mid-air, two sets of muscles quivered as they restrained the pianola in a frozen downward plunge.

Heave!

The river lapped mischievously around the barge.

I was holding the cheque for the balance of payment in my hand and it occurred to me: who, at this point owned the pianola?

One miscalculation, and the pianola would slide into the river and sink out of sight, to be planted into the finest of black mud, where it could only be played at low tide.

I tucked the cheque into my pocket.

But all went well.  The barge received the pianola with flat-bottomed stabilty and the jetty planks let out of creak of relief.

The pianola balancing between jetty and barge

Now much lower in the water, the barge sank even further when the two movers also boarded.

Under the weight of the pianola, the barge settles lower into the water. 

They roped the pianola into place.  The engine sputtered into life and off it went, chugging along the river in the early morning light, as pianolas do.

The pianola chugs along the river in the morning light

Cockatoo Island dockyard auction - 23 years ago.

One of 6,000 lots sold at the Cockatoo Island Dockland auction in 1991

Twenty-three years ago, Cockatoo Island Dockland (a Sydney Harbour island and a decommissioned shipyard) went under the hammer.
 In October 1991, amid speculation that the island would be an ideal site for a casino, all ship building machinery and plant was sold to the highest bidders.  There were 6,000 lots for sale, and it took five days.
At that time, the island was not usually open to the public, so it was a chance for people to peek at the recent past before it was dismantled. 
Most of the machines dated from the 1930s and had been used for ship building and repairs, peaking in World War II, when 3,600 men had been employed on the island.  For about 50 years, Cockatoo Island had been one of Australia's biggest shipyards.
That era being over, the island was decommissioned (Navy-speak for 'time to go') by the Australian Defence department, and it was moving right along.
Those who came to the auction did not necessarily come to bid, but to admire and perhaps caress those magnificent machines of the past.   
Who could resist the muscular splendour of a 5-tonne overhead crane, or the well-oiled delight of an Australian iron-and-steel four-metre gap bed lathe (3,000 between centres, 500 swing, four jaw chuck and steady's), or the simple handiness of the Yale triple-gear 5-tonne chain blocks?  It was machine-lover's heaven. 
One lathe was said to be the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. It was 12.2 metres long, weighed in at 150 tonnes and was the star of the auction. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that it sold for $15,000, but the estimated cost to dismantle, carry by barge off the island and reassemble in its new workshop was $300,000.

A little something for the men's shed

A man from Dubbo, having read about the auction in the newspaper, had dropped everything and hurried to Sydney for a chance to farewell this lathe. He was last seen climbing over it, tenderly stroking its oiled surfaces and saying: 'They don't make 'em like they used to.'
The auction was a mobile shopping spree. Most items were nailed down or were bigger than a grain silo, so the auction crowd had to trail from building to building.
The auctioneer was rarely seen, but always heard. For five days, he could be tracked by the microphoned rapid auctioneer-babble echoing across the island from various vantage points: the destroyer wharf, propeller shop or up a ladder on the roof of building 117.

Whether or not these machines were in working order was, as the Terms of Sale side-stepped, a ‘matter of opinion’. Who’s opinion?  Nevertheless the Terms of Sale bluntly stated: ‘No warranties are given whatsoever. Caveat Emptor.’
Buyers who were looking for a bargain may have been disappointed.  These machines were undoubtedly old, some rusted, but their elegant art deco designs transcended their real value.  Furthermore, they had provenance:  they built the ships that took our boys to war. Perhaps this was why, in the opinion of some bidders, they were selling for more than they were worth.

Money for old rope

Pickles Auctions estimated that the gross proceeds of sale possibly exceeded $1.5 million.
Sentiment did not enter into the cost of haulage. Enough to say that everyone loves an island, especially specialists in machinery removals, craneage, fork lifts and barge owners.
According to the ‘Information to buyers’ section of the catalogue: ‘Getting purchases off the island is a breeze. An approximate cost for a truck to go to and from the island is $150.’
Trouble was: many items were much bigger than trucks.

Barge for hire: truckin' it to the Cockatoo Island Dockland auction.

About 600 people a day attended the auction, most of whom denied they were buying for themselves. They had a friend who needed a Cincinnati No 2 U milling machine or a Churchill spindle grinder.
Reading the nostalgic mood of the crowd, scrap metal merchants kept a low profile.
People with cameras did not bother to bid. They took photos of the recent past imposed on the more distant past: a convict-built prison as background to 1930s machinery being fork-lifted down the road.
They took photos of the dry docks, one of which was built by the convicts. It was apricot sandstone descending in steps and stairs in a hull shaped excavation deep below sea level.
A dam wall may have stood between you and the sea, but it was still an act of bravado to climb into the depths of the dry dock.  This was where drainage trenches were filled with water and where fish were stranded after the sea had been pumped out.
As the story goes, when the dockyard was fully operational, and seawater had been pumped out of the dry dock, a worker grabbed one of these stranded fish by the tail. The foreman glared down from the rim of the dry dock and bellowed: ‘Fire that man!’
At that time, about 4,000 people worked on the island. The last ship was built in 1984. The last submarine was refitted in 1991.
In the amenities block, 900 Brownbilt steel clothes lockers went up for sale. They stood rusted and empty, some with their doors swinging open, waiting for their owners to return.


NOTE:  The casino was never built, possibly because parking was a problem.