Mike Knudsen wrote in Digest 970718:

> The seller, who had been restoring organettes of all types for years,
> said to use Zephyr Skin for the pneumatics inside.   This is a thin,
> light, nearly transparent natural substitute for pouch leather.
> I still have some from 25 years ago, and it seems to be still good.
> I think PPCo still carries it.

I would *not* suggest zephyr skin for *anything* anymore.  Please see
the following:

1) You cannot get good quality material.  It all leaks and delaminates
badly.

2) Your 25-year-old skin has spent most of its useful life unused.
It is now too old to trust for the next 50 years.

3) Since pouch leather ( and don't use any other kind!) nowadays is
chrome-tanned, it is now more porous and will need to be sealed.  In a
diaphragm arrangement like a player piano, the rubber cement is accept-
able, but with a pneumatic [bellows] arrangement the rubber cement will
touch itself at the folds, and so use egg white.  Often, however, it will
be too thick for such a use.

4) The best way is very high quality pneumatic cloth like the fine muslin
& gum rubber.  The Australian cloth would be best.

5) It is also the only use I might find for the purple Polylon that
everyone loves to hate, because of its similarity to zephyr.

6) IF you could find AEolus cloth it would also be a close second to
Zephyr.

D. L. Bullock  Piano World ST. Louis