My question is for those that are making bellows and bags in the US and Canada. Can you point me towards sources of airtight leather so I can make another bag and bellows for myself? I know I can buy these items ready-made, but I would like to make some myself. You can email or pm me. Thanks in advance,
John
Hmmm
Airtight leather…
Is that unfartable pants for rock stars!!
Or condoms for folk groupies…
OT:
I’m doing a tour with the Irish band Teada in December but I’m hearing that their groupies are calling themselves
Wait for it…
Teada Tots!!!
See ya then…
Tommy
liestman on this board just sold a whole hide of the type of leather you want. Perhaps you could find out where it went to. Use the Search feature on this forum, or PM liestman directly.
djm
L&M in Canada and Tandy Leather would be good sources. Don’t bother with dear skin. I find it stretchy and it leaks like it was in a gun fight.
Marc
Try The Leather Factory, which is a subsidiary company of Tandy, I think, but has greater selection. You basically have to buy entire sides there, unless you luck onto a large piece of scrap in their remainder bins. Their leather inventory and finish type seems inconsistent from month to month, so I like to go in person, and see what they have. That was you can blow through the leather and see if it passes air.
Chrome tanned seems to work well with seasoning (1/2 beeswax and 1/2 neatsfoot oil mixture, melted, mixed, and applied hot to inside and outside of bag, and leave the bag in the sun for a few hours).
I made some bags with vegetable tanned leather, very smooth polished black on one side. It worked quite well, and being airtight and needing no seasoning, but was a bit stiff. It is loosening up with use.
The Leather Factor has most of what else you might need to make bags: waxed thread, rivets of all sorts, beeswax, neatfoot oil, Barge cement (you need a tax id to buy that for some reason). From what I can tell the Tandy Craftsman contact cement works as well. They have a volume discount club too, if you do much leatherwork.
In my experience there are two kinds of leather for bags - leather that is almost airtight and needs seasoning and leather that is specifically sold as bagpipe bag leather and is made to be airtight with no seasoning. I only use the latter. This used to be made in Canada by Dominion Tanners and sold through them or their retail wing VanTan. They have stopped doing business apparently but there are other places that sell the same leather, tanned somewhere overseas. So far the best quality stuff that I have bought has been through Establo Leather (talk to Rick Repta and tell him I sent you) in Guelph, Ontario (Canada). It is not as cheap as chrome tanned leather from Tandy but is airtight. The first bag I made of this, about 20 years ago, is still playing airtight to this day, with no seasoning and rivet constuction (technique learned from Mike MacHarg and modified since then). The 25 or so bags I have made are all, so far as I know playing fine with no seasoning. Here in Houston, Texas, I find that seasoned bags can leak oil through the bag onto your clothes on a nice hot summer day, so I stay away from seasoning, but obviously the seasoning approach works great for most folks.
There is at least one more source of similar leather in (memory failure) whatever town in California that Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure was set in, but at least their black colored pipe bag leather was a little to stiff for my tastes (I go for thinner bag leather).
By the way, on Barge cement (my favorite) you can get it at craft places like Hobby Lobby (or is it Michaels) with no hassles. I think Tandy/Leather Warehouse wants a tax id due to shipping this highly flamable stuff, but if you can walk into one of their stores, there is no such hassle.
YMMV
I changed the leather parts to my bellows, bougth enough thin+ smooth leather from shoemaker, clued 2 pieces together with leather clue as same with the seam. Airtigth ,ligth, easy to play ,no need for sewing
seam.
Cheers,
M
San Dimas!
No E
No E - thanks for being totally excellent and non-bogus, dude!
Thanks for the input so far.
I have an additional question, what ounce leather is being used for bellows and for bags?
Thanks,
John
I’m using 5-5.5oz. for bellows. Leather Factory - Tanners Select Chap Side 9111-01. It’s great for bellows and requires no seasoning. It could be too stiff for a bag though. I may try the next time they put that particular hide on sale.
Jim
Yo John,
I was in the Salt Lake Leather Factory the other day and the woman there said ’ Oh, you’re an Irish piper, there was a guy in here the other day from Logan says he’s a piper too"
I said “let me guess, does he look dangerous, like he has been cooking up meth in a confined space all day?”
She said “ya, kinda”
I warned her that she should not let people like that in the store. I also alerted her that there is another suspicious piper character from Logan, but he is relatively harmless, unless you are unfortunate enough to mention…Llamas! 
BTW, Are you going to the Frog-den session tonight? I’ll try to bring a piece of what I just used for my new bellow if you want some (I think I have enough left). It worked pretty well, but a couple of stiches are leaking. Hopefully I will have time to fix it before tonight.
Hope to se ya tonight!
John
Finished tying in my new bag (she’ a big un). I used the tanners select chap side leather,cemented the bag with barge cement and hand stitched it. Bag is air tight with out seasoning. My hard reed is much easier to play with a larger bag. I glad I got it done before J-Dub got me banned from my new favorite store.
Thanks for all the input. My next project is a bellows. Anyone have pros and cons for stitched vs tacked bellows?