I would appreciate hearing comments from people with experience working
with "newer" pneumatic player piano mechanisms.

I was asked to help bring back to life a ca. 1970 Musette 88-note
(actually about 80 notes) player, with a Standard mechanism.  When I
have been asked to repair these in the past, usually all that was
needed was re-attaching hoses or making mechanical adjustments.  Now it
appears to me that age is taking its toll on these forty year old
instruments. This unit has plastic valve blocks.  Most of the pneumatic
cloth throughout the unit seems to be reasonably pliable, but a couple
of the pneumatics (e.g., the one operating the electric shut-off
switch) seem to be showing age and are getting rather stiff.

This piano had not worked for about ten years.  The main issue was a
significant leak in the motor governor box cover.  Once that was
rectified, the piano sprang to life, much to the delight of the elderly
owners.  But it seems to be rather leaky throughout, and with a test
roll run, I found that about a dozen notes didn't work.  After using
the tracker bar pump to remove paper dust and individually working on
the non-working notes (vacuuming out the pneumatic tubing from the
pneumatic side, etc.), most notes at least try to play, but many of the
original non-working units continue to play poorly, sluggishly, or with
poor repetition.   Most (about 2/3) of the problem notes are on the
bottom row of the three rows of pneumatics.

One overall issue is the inability to get sufficient vacuum out of the
electric motor.  When I foot pumped the player action, I was able to
get it to play quite well by pumping hard.  When operating with the
electric motor, it is weak and wheezy.  My elderly clients were not
able to manually pump it to play much better than the electric motor
did.  Originally, the owners mainly used the electric pump, and never
used the foot pedals much.  They are most interested in getting it to
work with the electric motor.

My experience with older, leaky players and electric vacuum pumps is
that the electric pump is usually able to significantly outperform a
foot pump.  I have seen more than a few players that you can foot pump
the daylights out of and barely get them to play, while an electric
pump is able to make them play reasonably acceptably.  I found it odd
that this electric pump does not seem to have anywhere near the power
of my foot pumping.

The electric motor pump has a pneumatic volume control, with two tubes
connected to a volume-control knob in the spool box.  I am reasonably
sure that I had the settings set for as loud as it could go, but I am
not entirely certain of this.  It appears to me that this motor has a
fixed blower speed, and the volume controls probably restrict flow.
But I did not get very deep into the blower.  Can someone tell me how
this volume control arrangement works?

The owners are willing to spend enough to put a new electric pump in
the piano, if that will get it playing reasonably well.  If I do this,
I would probably go with a variable speed type.  I have installed many
of these that I purchased from the Player Piano Company.  Is it
possible that the electric pump that came with this piano is just too
weak for the leaky piano?  Does anyone think that replacing the
electric pump with one that is made to work well with leaky players is
a good option?

On the individual note problems I mentioned in the second paragraph, I
am thinking just playing the player piano and exercising the pneumatic
valves may get many of the poorly playing notes working better.  Can
anyone give any insight as to the reparability of these plastic valve
blocks?  Is it possible to get the dirt that is probably in the valves
or bleeds out without taking the entire action out and apart?

These owners are not interested in an expensive restoration, but are
willing to have me replace the blower if needed.  What suggestions do
you incredibly helpful MMD'ers have to help this elderly couple get
their player piano working again for a reasonable cost?

Gary Rasmussen
Mason, Ohio