Vince,

I restored one of these quite a few years ago. As noted, it is necessary to
make two sets of gaskets for the valve bodies and valve covers. These are a
custom shape with oval holes for the valves etc. make sure the gasket covers
all the areas needed but with the proper relief areas for the wind passages,
bleeds etc. I spent several evenings with punches and scissors cutting these
things out using a template I made. As noted by several others, these were
zinc based die castings. Very precise when original but, like many die
castings, deteriorated with time. This was apparently due to impurities and
some batches will be fine and others will do a slow motion explode. In my
case, of the 22 sets, 17 were near perfect. I was able to salvage 3 of them
with some careful epoxy and fill work. 2 were not repairable. It is possible
to advertise for a couple replacements but instead, I simply blocked the one
on each end off with a gasket and made the outside look like the rest. I lost
4 notes on each end but the upper and lower 3 notes are not used on the
majority of rolls anyway.

Another comment is that I believe that the one I did used zephyr skin
pouches. Sometimes you will find leather pouches in an old player to be
usable even today. Zephyr skin, however, is much less rugged and will
certainly have to be replaced. I am surprised that this piano plays at all as
the pouches are generally disintegrated by now. I also remember that the
upper boards on the pneumatics split rather badly on removal but are simple
to replace. Just lay in a  supply of lumber when you start. Hope these
comments help.

Bob Conant