Eliyahu Shahar indicated that the stack was "professionally restored"
in the 80's.  My comment to this is that a professional would have used
only hot hide glue for attaching the key pneumatics to the deck tier
boards, not white glue.

Over-sanding on the deck tier boards can be a problem with rebuilds.
After gluing the pneumatics, you can look down the side of the tier and
see how the pneumatics dip down and up, based on how well (or bad) the
sanding and gluing was done.  This can cause problems elsewhere in the
rebuild.  Depending on how bad the problem is determines now I handle
it.

Note: Belt sanding is not the way to remove any white or yellow glue.
What happens is that the sandpaper seems to work at first but quickly
softens the glue with the heat and starts to re-deposit it elsewhere.
Soon you have taken off about 1/16 to 1/8 inch of wood and replaced
your belt about two or three times.  This should be avoided.

Since most of my rebuild jobs do not use the original key pneumatics,
I can just break them off or use a sharp knife to break the pneumatic
wood at the glue line.  The exception is when the valve or pouch is
part of the key pneumatic.

If hot animal hide glue was used to hold the pneumatics down, it is
usually easy to break up the old pneumatics and use a sharp chisel to
remove the remaining wood and glue from the mounting tier board without
gouging the wood.   A light hand sanding can be done at this point and
new pneumatics glued to the surface.

If white or yellow glue was used in a previous rebuild, I attach the
tier board to an 8-foot jig that I made for my table saw and cut the
pneumatics off of the tier boards.  I would not recommend doing this
without a jig because there is always a chance that you will ruin the
tier board if you have problems.

My first pass cut I leave just a sliver of the old pneumatic wood on
the tier board.  I sometimes just stop here and use this virgin wood
to glue the new pneumatics.  This leaves the bad glue on the wood for
the next rebuild to contend with.  This won't make the next player
technician very happy but you won't make the situation worse.

At this point, if you have the patience and the time, you can use heat
and water to soften the white or yellow glue and remove it with a sharp
chisel.  I have found it difficult to remove all of the new age glue in
some cases and have questioned if my use of hide glue will stick to the
wood adequately.  Some one else on the MMD may be able to help answer
this question.

If it looks like I can take off the white glue with the saw without
cutting deeply into the tier deck, I will do so.  This is the best
way to go but not always possible.  I have had cases where there was
extensive damage to the deck wood from the previous rebuild.  I have
had to make deep cuts (1/4 inch) into the deck and reglue new wood to
the virgin surface.  You then use the jig to cut the deck back down up
to the proper dimensions.  This sometimes involves redrilling the air
passage holes that were covered up by the new wood.

Pete Knobloch (Tempe Arizona, USA)