MUSICAL BOX MECHANISM.

As a number of mechanical tricks, such as automata, depend on the simple action of the musical box, we subjoin its description.

A side-toothed wheel, on the axle of which is fastened one end of the winding-up spring (which is enclosed in a small circular box on the left), is put in gear with one end of the roller, on which are fastened the fingers or pins which lift the teeth of the comb, from whence the sound comes. The motion is regulated by means of a small fly-wheel playing before the spring-box (which, by-the-by, goes out of sight during business). This fly, standing upright and having a thread round the stem, is acted on by finer wheels, which are in gear with the end of the roller. The right end of the roller comes slightly over the edge of the same, and is caught in a slit in a small lever (worked by a pearl button outside), which moves the roller up and down its axle, thus altering the tune, or position of the pins. The left button stops the revolution of the roller by the end of a lever, turned like the letter L, popping into a hole in the roller-wheel at the end of each tune.

Contents