Mike Blackwell is working on a Standard player piano stack.  He noticed
that the gray and white tubing has cracked and broken around the
tracker assembly and was wondering how it was originally connected to
the wood.

The tubing used on your player is probably made of lead.  It gets a
white color due to oxidation when in moist areas.  I have seen the lead
have an elongated crack that goes down the tubing for about  1 inch or
more when sandwiched between wood or cloth parts.

The lead tubing is mounted into the wood by coating the wood hole and
the tubing with shellac.  The tubing is then pushed into the wood hole
and flared out slightly from the bottom side of the wood (if possible).

You will have problems finding lead tubing to replace the original
ones.  What I do is order 4 right elbow reducers from player piano
(#361) and replace the lead tubing with the new tubing connector and
rubber hose.

You can also do an excellent repair by filling in the holes in the wood
with new dowel material, sand off the excess using a belt sander, and
drilling new holes for the smaller right angle nipples.  You then paint
the wood and install the new nipples using burnt shellac.

Pete Knobloch