Hi, Larry. The procedure of coating leather pouches in order to make
them as air-tight as possible, is generally used on NEW leather pouches,
rather than on ones that are 3/4 of a century old, in the hopes that they
be reused and will last until the customers check clears! Besides, old
pouches that still LOOK good, frequently have lost their dish and will have
to be replaced anyways. The process for sealing NEW leather pouches is as
follows: Get some CARTER'S rubber cement and thin it 50/50 with either
Carter's Rubber Cement Thinner, or Naptha. Then brush it on to each pouch
with a small disposable artists brush. If the pouch well is deep enough, you
can also suck on a short length of tubing attached to the pouch input nipple
in an effort to draw the rubber cement mixture more deeply into the pouch
leather, but DON'T inhale while doing this!. You'll find that the thinned
rubber cement dries very quickly, so that by the time you're done with all
88 pouches, you can go back to pouch #1 and start giving them a second coat.
The thinned rubber cement does leave a small amount of residual stickiness
on the surface of the pouch, so after they've all been treated apply a small
amount of talcum powder to each pouch with another disposable artists brush
and then blow off the excess. Because of leathers porosity, you HAVE to seal
new leather pouches when using them to replace old zephir skin ones, or
you'll that you have too much bleed and wind up having to replace the bleeds
themselves. Since the mid-1960's I have routinely sealed every leather pouch
I install with the thinned rubber cement mixture and have never had any prob-
lems with the pouches becoming too stiff or losing their flexibility. But,
then, I have never tried using any rubber cement than Carter's. Other rubber
cements may work differently. One last thought: If you're rebuilding an old
player and the pouches still LOOK good and you're thinking about reusing
them, FORGET IT!  The chances are that they don't have enough dish any more
and will probably hold the valves off their lower seats causing gross stack
leakage. Replace them. Always. And then seal them with the rubber cement
mixture whether the old ones were zephir skin OR leather. Fortunately re-
placing and sealing a set of pouches is a relatively easy job. Have fun!

Les Smith¶
lessmith@buffnet.net