The best rubber cement sealant will be found at places like Tandy's
leather goods stores, or shoe repair suppliers, since that kind of
cement lasts much longer.  Carter's cement was what kindergartners
in the 70's used to stick some of their little art projects together.
It would last just long enough to see them out of that class, before
it all came apart.

On the other hand, I know an old fellow who stuck bird houses together
with Tandy rubber cement, and claims they are still up in his back
yard.  There is a huge difference in longevity.  One good brand of shoe
cement is "Tiger."

If you use rubber cement for pouch leather, I recommend treating the
entire skin section you intend to use before punching out the pouches.
You should not apply rubber cement to a pouch after it is glued down,
because the finger naturally carries the largest percentage of it
around the rim of the pouch, where you need the most flexibility.

Remember that rubber cement gets harder with age.  It is why Ampico
reproducers with original pouches will never play as easily and softly
as they once did.  While you will not see any difference with most
players that run on 10" and higher vacuum, the reproducer is greatly
penalized, particularly when the thinnest pouch leather you can find
today is largely twice as thick as the original.

For those who believe that you are supposed to use rubber cement to
seal pouches, I would suggest looking in the MMD archives for a product
called Dow Corning 111 Pure Silicone Grease.  This does not migrate, it
seals, it never gets stiff, it cannot decay, and lifter disks when
necessary can be put on before the pouch is sealed.

As soon as the sealing of a pouch becomes about 20% of the bleed draft,
the stiffening effect of sealant is more detrimental than the sealing
effect is advantageous.  Which means that very tight pouches will also
be very slow ones.  The Autotypist company (Simplex) used to coat their
pouches with heavy rubber cement, but they used .020 pouch leather and
pressures of around 100" of vacuum.

If your pouches are not feather sensitive, you will never realize what
your instrument could sound like.

Craig Brougher