For anyone thinking about resealing old leather pouches and putting them
back in the player action I have three words, don't do it. I the Ampico
player mechanism in my Knabe grand rebuilt about 13 years ago and have
been plagued with poor performance since day one. The secondary pouches
were replaced because the originals were Zephyr skin and leaked badly.
The primary valves had the outside facings replaced as far as we know
the inner facings were not replaced. The pouches were resealed with
rubber cement because the person doing the work said that the "pouches
looked good". What this did was to make the repetition of many notes to
be sluggish. The playing was very uneven and has continued to
deteriorate. This piano is not a joy to listen to. The piano action was
gone through and regulated several times by very competent technicians
so the piano is not the problem.

  My point is, if you have gone to all the trouble to rebuild the
pneumatics and valves in your player don't try to skimp with the
pouches. Chances are if you don't replace the pouches the performance of
your player will not be "all that it could be".

  Just as a side note I had many problems with the components in the
drawer of the Ampico unit. Part of the problem was again valves and
pouches. We sent the drawer from CA to Craig Brougher in Missouri. He
did a first class job of fixing all the things that were not done and
some of the things that were poorly done. Now I have to pull out the
stack and send that back to him to get the valves and pouches done. I
can say that we highly recommend Craig Brougher, his work is top notch.

Michael Swanson