Andy Taylor was right to complain about inferior and defective
materials.  If more people would do this first, and test their stock
by buying just a little bit of it first, then suppliers would begin to
realize that either they get a decent manufacturer, or go out of stock
on it.  But how are you going to decide to refuse sales of material in
which you are heavily vested for the next five years or so?

Any rebuilder knows that buying good cloth or hose once doesn't assure
him of good material again and again.  These manufacturers are sloppy
and indifferent.  What can PPC do about it?  Or Schaff?  Or American?
I went through the same thing with them!  Who can do one thing about
bad cloth?  They cough up $30,000 for an order, and here comes five
bolts.  Now what do you do?  It would cost a million dollars to have
your own testing facility, I guess, and that wouldn't prove anything
in a court.

I would sure appreciate it if someone who knows a supplier's options
were to come forward and explain how a catalog company can protect
itself from crummy American crapmanship!  We ought to be disgusted,
and we ought to be able to show it.  But frankly, PPCo and Durrell
Armstrong are doing all they can.  It's just that they are getting the
screws put to them by unscrupulous American manufacturers who chuckle
every time they realize that PPC cannot prove whether they have what
they ordered, or not!  ("Tyang Yang-Tzee", I believe the Chinese call
them.)

My song and dance has always been this: TEST IT FIRST.  Now you may
say, "If you can see light through it, how can it be tight?"  But that
really isn't "testing," is it?

Latex isn't black, you know.  Latex is white.  Granted, it probably
isn't very great, but on the other hand, most things you see covered
in motor cloth do not hold air very long, either.  They switch on,
and then they switch off.  The chances of things covered with leaky
motor cloth destroying the integrity of a player are minimal.  The only
thing I can think of that would be under continual vacuum is a motor
governor, or any kind of regulator, for that matter.  So in those
cases, check very closely.  As far as air motors -- I never use "motor
cloth."  That's the wrong stuff to use, today.

As far as PPCo's #55 heavy bellows cloth -- folks, that's the best
I've ever used.  They have a new shipment in, and Durrell sent me a
3-yard sample.  It's really good stuff.  You'll love it.  The rubber
is calendared; that means it's laid down in layers.  And it's about
.033-inch thick.  That's the same latex Duo-Art used in their pumps.
Get it while it's hot!

Craig Brougher