I have been restoring an Eberhardt upright coin op-player piano for
a customer and ran into a snag like I have never seen before.  It seems
that the valve leather facings need replacement and the valves cannot
be extricated from the deck boards.  There are metal screw-in seats
from the top with no visible way of attaching anything to unscrew them;
even then the valves won't come out through the top because the opening
is too small.

From the bottom, the seat is a glued in wooden ring with the metal seat
screwed into it along with a thin metal guide strap.  The final icing
on this cake is that the valves are pressed on the stem and even the
lifter button at the bottom of the stem is made of metal that was
soldered on to the stem.  This thing looks like I might have to devise
a whole new valve arrangement.

Anyone out there ever run across one of these monsters?  In close to
thirty years of working on players I never saw anything like this nor
do I wish to see one again.  Any thoughts?

Jim Jelinek