Hello fellow MMDyers,  A nasty mishap just came to me yesterday.
I just rebuilt the stack of a Plaola player but when the valves
needed attention I removed only the top valve seats to get to them.
These valve seats were installed with regular paper gaskets.

The inside, or lower seats, installed with Chatterton's compound,
had been inspected but were still in perfect shape and airtight.
Of four I was unsure and I reinstalled them with some Chatterton's
I had.

Lately I was manipulating the stack preparing for delivery.  I'm a
crippled and a sick man needing help to load and I dropped it on my
work table.  Excepting for few broken lower bellows that I fixed, all
looked normal.  I was preparing to go for the installation but just
for the sake of it I put the stack back on my workshop pump an hour
ago, and all went wrong.

Some valves refused to seat properly at rest position and the stack was
leaking a lot. I removed the front covers of the stack chests and the
upper valve seat of one of the offending valves.  I found chips of hard
Chatterton's compound all around in the stack.

Seemingly the shock shattered the Chatterton's seals of all the lower
valve seats inside the chests of the stack.  Now I need to disassemble
all those seats, scrape all remnants of the old Chatterton's, vacuum
clean everything and reassemble the whole shebang -- not a nice
surprise.

Checking my stock of Chatterton's compound to do the job I saw that I
really don't have enough for it.  I tried to reach my long time supplier
of the stuff but it seems it is gone out of business.  I could use
another modern sealant, maybe even more pliable than Chatterton's, but
for the sakes of integrity and tradition I'd like to stay with the old
compound.

I thought about boiling some shellac but the quantity needed is quite
large, it is not as easy to use as Chatterton's sticks are, and boiling
shellac flakes that are made to be diluted in alcohol is not necessarily
the best way.  Also, boiled down or burned shellac will become brittle
quite soon after application, sooner than Chatterton's.  Without
saying, it's gonna be quite time consuming, too!

Does anyone have a source for Chatterton's compound?  Or any
suggestions on how to get out of that situation with something else?

Thanks for any response,
Gilles Chouinard
Laval, Quebec, Canada