This problem has been bothering me for about 13 years now, and I hope
someone has some advice for me.  I have an early Ampico mechanism
in which the pneumatics for control of the soft and sustain pedals
are directly below the deck of the piano and the top of the lyre.
The pneumatics are about two inches wide by about 12 inches long.

The problem I am having is that they operate in a very sluggish
manner.  The brass inlet tubes are 3/8-inch in diameter.  At first
I thought that the valving was inadequate, however, when compressing
the pneumatic and then removing my finger from the inlet tube, the
pneumatic closes very slowly, which indicates to me that no matter
how fast the valving is, the pneumatic seems to be flow limited.

Has any one ever come across such a problem and what is the general
consensus on how to fix this?  Should I just enlarge the hole to
one-half inch or some other larger size?  This does not seem correct
since the assembly I have is how it was originally built.

Regards,
Joe Hutter