In response to why rubber cloth just does not last as long,  I believe
the answer lies in an old Player Piano Co. catalog.  They do not use as
much natural rubber verses synthetic materials.  Anybody remember how long
those rubber bands that your newspaper came with used to last.  I still
remember throwing those papers with those bands 30 plus years ago and
they were made by Plymouth rubber company, the same company that made
cloth for player pianos.  Now those rubber bands last maybe a month.

Several years ago a group of restorers knew the failing quality of our
current suppliers.  The search was on.  I think it was Jeffrey Morgan who
did quite a bit of the work stateside.  A supplier was found in Australia
and the rubber was put through extensive chemical test.  I used to have
all the data and lost it somewhere.

Player Piano Co. and Schaff now sell this cloth.  I would guess that some
of the older cloth could still be on the shelf and sold but probably not
as nobody had cloth of any kind several years ago.  I would also think
that since the player piano industry is so small that it would be really
expensive to find someone willing to make pure rubber cloth again.

It is kind of like trying to find radio tubes.  That market is so small
there are no American manufacturers making tubes today.  There is hope on
the horizon for people that need tubes though as a new company is
starting to make them in America.  If we could interest more people in
the world to own a pneumatic player piano then we too could have hope.

Perhaps a watchdog for the Player Piano Co. could interview Durrell
Armstrong for his opinions.

By the way, I am still looking for nickelodeon pianos.

Don Teach¶
1610 E. Bert Kouns¶
Shreveport, LA  71105¶
dat-smc@juno.com