I may have been misunderstood regarding my statement about this
H.C. Bay Recordo.  I was speaking only of the specific piano, not
of the company's product in general, which is generally considered
to be of low quality.  The hardware used to mount the drawer and the
pump is of quality similar to Ampico.  I usually see much cheaper
design in Recordos.

The pneumatic stack uses a very unusual valve in the stack.  I have
never heard of it in any literature. It can be scene and explained
at the following address on John Tuttle's Player-Care site:

  http://www.player-care.com/hc-bay-unusual.html 

This valve may have been an attempt to improve upon the black plastic
valve.  The valves not in the stack are of the common plastic design.

There is also a photo of the expression device.  It uses a common
spring regulator opposed by four pneumatics of various sizes to alter
the intensity.  This is somewhat like such systems in reproducing
pianos such as the Ampico A.  The four pneumatics can be activated
individually or together with others, which gives it 16 levels of
volume.

I'm not familiar with the Bellman system, however the worst Recordo
system I ever came across was in a Pratt-Read action.  It used various
"leakers" which were impossible to regulate.  It did not have a split
hammer rail lift, but relied upon a split stack and extra leakers to
achieve this effect.

Craig Roothoff
Escondido, Calif.