[ Ref. John A. Tuttle in 120917 MMDigest ]

My best guess of the manufacturer of the unknown player mechanism in
the Schrapel piano is Philipps.  The overall appearance of the stack
is very similar to the stack in the Philipps Pianella, with its front
panels finished in black and the long wing bolts holding it in place
at the ends.  The way the tracker tubes come down the front of the
stack is also identical.

The stack has the typical German double valve design with the front
valve being of the outside valve type with a small wooden disc on the
top of the vertical dowel.  The design of outside valve disc, being
flat on top, is again identical to Philipps and different in shape to
those found in other German pianos.  Another unusual aspect of the
Philipps outside valve is that the leather is stuck to the top of the
chest rather than to the underside of the valve disc.

A previous restorer appears to have remade the primary pouches out
of thin tosh.  This is wrong.  They are too thick and are holding
open the primary valves. They must be made out of zephyr and must lie
perfectly flat.  The secondary pouches towards the rear are also made
from zephyr.  This results in a very good system with extremely prompt
action which works well on the smaller tracker bar holes used on the
Pianella rolls (PM), which have 88 holes but are narrower than
conventional piano rolls.

I suggest that all primary and secondary pouches should be remade in
zephyr, and while you have the beast apart it would be worth recovering
the pneumatics.  Only hot glue should be used, and for zephyr it should
be made more liquid than usual.  Zephyr does not need to be sealed.
The best zephyr is bought from Herzog:
  http://www.lederfachhandel.de/produkte/orgelbau?lang=en 

Best regards,
Nicholas Simons, GB