-- [ From: Patrick Mullarky * EMC.Ver #3.0 ] --

To all,

I've had another bad experience with "Bilon", the thin double-sided
polyurethane fabric:

Yesterday I was going to cover some expression pneumatics with some bilon
I've had for about seven years...  it looked and felt fine.  But, I scratched
the surface with my fingernail, and the polyurethane coating came off !!  I
didn't scratch very hard !  I tried it in several places on the yardage, and
it was the same everywhere.

It's clear that the polyurethane had deteriorated severly just sitting
around on my shelf !

I am writing this to warn others that this material (bought from Player
Piano Company) is very unstable over time.  I would strongly recommend
steering clear of this material from now on.

Unfortunately, I've done four different stacks and expression systems with
this stuff in the past.  It looks like I will have a *lot* of rework to do in
the future when these pneumatics start to fail.  (The stack on my own
Ampico B, where I used Bilon,still seems to be working just fine, though,
after sixteen years...)  It clearly doesn't fail suddenly.  But I'll never
use the stuff again!!  For me it's back to good ol' cotton and natural
rubber pneumatic cloth, like was originally used on most players.

-Pat Mullarky-