Hydrophane leather dressing is commonly used by top player re-builders
here in the UK.  They think it's totally reliable, and have been using
it ever since Paddy Handscombe's ingenious discovery.

Paddy, our Chairman of the Player Piano Group, in fact discovered it
some 30 years ago after testing various substances to treat leather
in musical instruments, and he decided Hydrophane the best for the
reasons he gave recently in the MMD.

Paddy is quite famous; he's even mentioned in Arthur Ord-Hume's
"Pianola - The History of the Self-Playing Piano" (1984), with Ord-Hume
quoting a letter written by Paddy to the PPG Bulletin in 1978 on the
capabilities of the player piano.  There's a saying here in England:
if you want to know something, "Ask a policeman."  Well, if you want
to know something about player pianos, "Ask a Handscombe!"

Christine Robinson