The Player Piano Co in Wichita, KS informs me that they now have a
shipment of the very wonderful kangaroo pouch leather from Australia.
This stuff is unbeatable.  For those who don't trust sealants at all
and yet want a tight thin pouch averaging .010 or less, this is the
best there is, and you can't tear it.  It is also thinner than sheep.
So at about $6.00/ sq. ft, it is an excellent buy.  For those building
pillow pouches, I recommend it over zephyr skin, since I have not been
able to locate decent zephyr skin, anyway.

   Australian pouch leather is better because the density of the leather
is greatest close to the epidermis.  Sheep leather is relatively porous
where you want it to be strongest and tightest.  You are therefore able
to tan and sand the skin of Kangaroo much thinner without voids and
tearing, and so, make beautiful, soft, super-tough skins which are
perfect for pouch leather (and smells so good, too).

   The pouch leather of the teens and 20's was taken mostly from herds
of 2 yr.  old scottish sheep bred just for that purpose.  Today, pouch
leather is taken mostly from animals raised for food, and much of it is
just too weak, since the animals are watered heavily and ranging is
discouraged.

   To give you an example of its weathering qualities, one needs to
look no further than Duo-Art accordion pneumatics.  It was the
factory's idea  to cover these in pouch leather, which, in our area,
lasted about 50 years when exposed.  After that, it disintegrated.
When these were recovered with new pouch leather in the 60's and 70's
and resealed with (you know what)-- rubber cement-- the new leather
lasted between 8-15 years.  Then  you could stick your finger through
it.  By 5 or 6 years it was leaking like a seive, anyway.

   If we kid ourselves that we are the good guys using authentic
original materials and then it falls apart like that, we can no longer
preach that we have not "changed" what the builders intended.  It is
far better to have used long-lived pneumatic cloth on those external
bellows than to have adhered to the "original" materials which
disintegrate that rapidly.

   Even if modern sheep pouch leather were preserved with a sealer like
Dow Corning 111 silicone grease and talcum powder it would have, by
now, stretched about 20%, unless countered by straps which you would
have tacked around the accordions or else.  (a few Duo-Arts used
them).  New pouch leather for internal pouches is still better than the
old original stuff, and will not disintegrate being used as pouches
because they are enclosed.  But as long as we have offered the world's
finest pouch leather at low prices, why not take advantage and stock
up? I think I will.

Craig B.