[ Please reply both to sender and to the MMD.   -- Jody

Rank neophyte here, requesting assistance from the grizzled veterans
of player piano restoration.  This unit was donated to a local museum,
and I've volunteered to put it in working order.

A piano/player technician has pronounced it restorable, and it is in
generally good shape -- the only deterioration is directly due to age.
No weather, water, vermin/vandal damage of any sort.

The innards are a mixture -- Story & Clark wind motor, Bush & Lane
head, Amphion key pneumatics, Godknowswhut lower action.  The key
pneumatics are of course in need of new cloth, but the pouches are
indeterminate.

One I've cracked open is zephyr skin.  They _appear_ to also be okay,
but is there a method of testing them first to determine if they have
to be replaced? The correspondence in the MMD archives suggest that
finding decent zephyr skin today is akin to a miracle, and I'm of the
belief that major surgery is not to be undertaken unless there is no
alternative.

Valve leathers I'm resigned to doing, but the pouches are the key to
the process.  Guidance?

Dan Harrett