If chain perforations repeat rather than play a single solid note,
it indicates there is too much bleed which can be from oversized bleed
cup hole or due to porous pouches. So your pouches are not in as good
a shape as you may have thought.

Hint: Always replace 100 year old leather on music machines. Even the
best chrome tanned Aeolian gray leather gets porous and needs replacing.

We also seal all our pouches exactly like the factory did using rubber
cement which is no longer available from office supply stores but now
is found at leather supply sources and called "leather cement".

Another thing which you did not do but is absolutely needed: When you
take the pouches off, squeeze, flow, or paint shellac through every
channel and every pouch well. This is 1000 times more important now
since the original shellac sealing has crackled and 100-year-old wood
has opened its pores.

I have had to re-rebuild stacks because all the primary pouch and valve
boards were cross leaking. Sealing up all the pouch channels with tape,
opening one channel and blowing into the pouch on that stack was found
to raise six other pouches besides the one that was supposed to be
moving.

You can no longer take shortcuts on player rebuilds today. Most
mechanisms are over 100 years old.

Doug L. Bullock
Alton, Illinois
http://www.thepianoworld.com/