Hello MMD.  I would like to mention to Michael La that I read
Jeffrey Wood's comments on rebuilding an Aeolian air motor just before
commencing the rebuild of a motor identical to Michael's.  I found
Jeffrey's advice very useful, and followed it as closely as I could.

I used separate pieces of cloth to cover the two ends of each double
pneumatic, fearing that trying to use one piece to wrap around both
ends would end in disaster.  I used hide glue, motor cloth from the
Orchestrelle Co. in Melbourne and some pouch leather near the hinges
that I already had.

On disassembling the motor I found that the rubber washers separating
the three double pneumatics were quite hard and brittle, so I punched
new washers from a neoprene sheet of the same thickness as the originals
-- as near as I could get.  I don't think that it is critically
important to get this thickness exactly the same.

I rebushed all six wooden arms on the crankshaft, making sure I didn't
muddle them up. I also re-graphited the sliding surfaces of the three
box valves as well as the surfaces on which they slide.    This
necessitated removing the valve guides; I was very careful to label
everything to make sure each piece, including the woodscrews, was
labelled so that it went back exactly where it came from.

This care in labelling everything, including screws, was the result
of my experience from about thirty years ago, when I rebuilt my first
player, which happened also to be an Aeolian.  When I disassembled
the stack I just chucked all those several hundred little valve plate
screws into a glass jar, thinking that they would all be identical.
Well, they weren't.  On reassembling the valves I found I had quite
a number of stripped threads in the wood, or so it seemed.  I suspect
that in some cases I was trying to use a thin screw in a place formerly
occupied by a thick screw.  Admittedly my present rebuild has turned up
a few stripped valve plate threads, but not many.

When I finally put the motor back together, and retuned it as discussed
in Art Reblitz's book, I found that under no-load conditions, it just
stopped running at about 0.5" on the water manometer.  How it will run
in service I don't yet know, because after just over two years of
grinding away, I still haven't finished the rebuild of my Steck Half
Duo-Art.  But it's getting closer.

John Phillips in Hobart, Tasmania.