In Digest 961213 Bruce Hannover wrote about the 1922 Gulbransen Player
Piano which he is rebuilding.

There are a couple of ways to remove that old rubber tubing.  I use round
jaw pliers (not round nose).  Insert one jaw in the brass tube of the
tracker bar, pinch over the rubber tubing, release pressure slightly and
gently twist.  NOT TOO HARD!  This will shatter the hard rubber tubing,
the twisting will remove remaining residue. For soft rubber tubing that
has vulcanized itself to the brass,  the pliers will cut through and the
rotating motion will  peal most of the tubing from the brass nipple.  The
remainder can be removed by soaking in lacquer thinner and brushing off
residue.

I hope you have done your homework about this player action.  It is one
of the hardest to rebuild accurately.  There are several pitfalls for the
inexperienced.

Have you removed the pneumatics yet?  We have developed a method of
removing pneumatics with minimal damage to either the pneumatics, wooden
valve caps or the decks.  We also have a different system for disassembly
and reassembling of the stack.  It does not require the use of gaskets and
virtually guarantees that there will be no plugged or leaking air
passages.   If you are interested we will explain our system.

Bob & Sonja Lemon