Hi All,  After finishing the tests with hide glue and synthetic cloth,
I decided to run the same tests using synthetic cloth and plastic glue.
(The plastic glue that I used and sell is made by Spectrum Adhesives.)
As I had done with the previous hide glue tests, for comparison
I included the original type of cotton-rubber striker pneumatic cloth
that is no longer available.

If I was surprised by the results of the first tests, comparing the
original type cloth against the Herzog cloth, I was shocked by the
results of this last test.  Using plastic glue, the bond between the
cotton side of the original striker cloth and the wood failed at just
over 1500 grams of weight.  With the hide glue, the bond had failed at
just over 900 grams.  With the cloth side of the 0.0045" synthetic
cloth glued to the wood with plastic glue, the bond failed at 600 grams
of weight.

It's also quite important to note that in every case throughout all of
the three tests, that I've written about in the last two days, the bond
between the 'rubber' side of all of the cloths and the wood failed with
significantly less weight.  With the hide glue, it generally took only
one-third the amount of weight to pull the bond apart.  With the plastic
glue, it generally took about one-half the amount of weight to pull the
bond apart.

Professionally speaking, I found this point to be upsetting since I have
been recommending that the rubber side of the synthetic cloth should be
glued to the wood, when using plastic glue.  And, although previous
'pressure' tests that I've run proved that the bond between the rubber
side and wood, using plastic glue, is plenty strong enough for striker
pneumatics, I now know that gluing the cloth side to the wood creates
an even stronger bond.

In closing, I want to reiterate again that my tests cannot be described
as scientific in nature.  In fact, I would rather describe them as
relatively crude.  However true that may be, I tried my best to use
exactly the same gluing technique with all of the cloth samples.

Musically,
John A Tuttle
Player-Care
Brick, New Jersey, USA