[ John A. Tuttle wrote in 080329 MMDigest:

> Secondly, I've never found it necessary to make two trips to
> a customer's home to replace the cloth on the "Off" pneumatic.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the original post.
The shut-off pneumatic is fairly small but doesn't take much time
to clean up with water and a razor blade if you don't want to replace
the pneumatic.  I have found that it is much easier to just make
a few of these pneumatics at home and have them available when needed.

At the customer's home I use a chisel to remove the old pneumatic
from its base and glue a new one in its place.  It doesn't take long
for the glue to set up if you use hide glue.  I have found that some
of the shut-off assemblies don't include a bleed as stated earlier.
The early pianos did but the newer ones didn't.

Another hearsay is that the newer Aeolian players were glued with
a more modern type glue.  This is true for holding the plastic valves
to the wood but I am finding that they used hide glue for most of the
rest of the parts on many of the pianos.  And there _is_ a version of
the newer Aeolian that has the automatic replay option.  I have had
to work on two of these.

Pete Knobloch
Tempe, Arizona, USA