Sealing Pouches
By Bill Chapman
Since we are on the subject I thought I'd mention my experience with the Dow-Corning leather preservative that was put out in the 1980's. It was supposed to be the living end in leather preservative, and in fact it did a good job on the large pouches under the pipes in the Reproduco that runs on about 5" of wind.
However, it did slightly stiffen the leather, turned it a rusty brown color and yet it still took glue for the pipe valves. I wouldn't be inclined to use it again, because rubber cement (or nothing) seems adequate for pipe valves in our clean and moist Seattle air. Note, this is probably NOT the same product that Craig B is using.
As for mink oil, it was advertised as keeping leather supple and soft, but the organs playing on lighter pressure (like 2.5 inches) pressure soon refused to play. The pouches were so stiffened by mink oil that they wouldn't open on low pressure.
--Add'l note, I took apart the 70 year old Duo-Art, and the leathers were still good. Luckily, I found no trace of rubber-dust, so simply re-sealed them with rubber cement. Worked fine. I did tear one apart to see how much dust was under it, and to see if the leather was fragile. Plenty of dust, but very strong leather. |
(Message sent Tue 9 Apr 1996, 03:00:06 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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