Greetings,  I just finished rebuilding and testing a 65/88-note stack
from a Weber foot-pumped grand.  At times I thought I might never
finish it.

It has got to be one of the worst designed stacks I have ever worked
on.  Everything that could be in the way of something else was just
that.  Jobs that could be simple were complicated due to careless
layout of components.  It is as if it was the first stack ever designed
by whoever built it.

There never should have been more than one of these built but I bet
Aeolian keep making them just the same until the product was cancelled.
Of course, they had the benefit of all new components and templates and
scale sticks, etc., but their work would have been easier if they had
planned the thing a little better.

Has anyone else rebuilt one of these and did you find it a surprising
amount of work? I knew the double valve aspect would add time but I was
not prepared for every little part being in the way of something else
making assembly and testing take several times longer than it should
have.

There are all sorts of internal tubes and tubes over moving parts that
could have been avoided by a little thought.  Also some pretty crappy
machine work such as rough turning on the secondary valve stems.  Just
about every glued surface is smaller than it should be making perfect
gluing essential.  Adjustment will be real fun once it is in the piano
because all the leather nuts are covered by a maze of tubes and brass
elbows.  This will be a "drop the stack 10 times" sort of adjustment
for lost motion.

Amazingly enough, there was only one leaking valve due to a bent valve
plate that probably was that way from the factory.  It did not show up
in subassembly testing and was fortunately on the top deck.  Sure glad
I didn't have to tear this thing apart again.

Were these things really early?  I know that Aeolian was slow to make
changes and primitive designs stayed around longer in their pianos.
Do most people give up on these things?  I doubt I will ever do another
unless it is for myself.

How do you estimate the cost to rebuild a monster like this?  Any
idea what a reasonable cost to rebuild this sort of stack should be?
I gave an estimate for the whole pneumatic restoration and want to be
fair to the customer but don't want to cheat myself either.

Does 100 hours to rebuild this stack sound unreasonable?  Sure does
to me, but that is what it took and I work quite efficiently, making
special tools to save time etc.  I did a lot of testing and did not
have to redo anything.  This is just how long it took.

Best regards,
Spencer Chase
Laytonville, Calif.
http://www.spencerserolls.com/