That sounds strange to me. I’ve used many L&M bags (tied them onto lots of people’s sets, and played them myself) without noting any seam leakage… even after years have elapsed. Sounds to me like you got a bad bag, nevermind what they said over the phone. Or maybe there was a quality control issue with that batch of bags?
Mind you, I wouldn’t necessarily notice/care about leakage of two or three CC per minute - nor do I see how that would affect playing performance significantly. When I say “no leaks” I mean that the bag can be kept at playing pressure (w/nothing sounding) for 20 or 30 seconds without significant air loss.
I’ve been told not to season L&M bags, and I wouldn’t recommend it for dry-blown pipes.
Leather needs periodic moisturizing to maintain its elasticity. Ask my face this time of year. A one time sealing of a leather bag with a good seasoning will give you a lifetime of playing pleasure. L&M bags can rise to the sublime point of not ever needing seasoning but that is the exception that proves the rule.
The L&M bag leather is pre-sealed/pre-treated to seal the pores, with some proprietary and apparently top-secret formula.
After decades of non-use of course the leather could dry out, but a bag that has been unplayed for decades is IMO a good candidate for replacement anyhow.
No they are not. That is why the manufacturer says to season the bag.
The only process the L&M bag goes through is the leather is tumbled about with some rocks to soften it. Much like the American Indian women who would chew on their husband’s buckskin drawers to make them softer. Now we just go strait for our husband’s backsides. Nyuk, Nyuk.
My information comes from a long discussion of this on another forum, which ended with someone actually asking L&M about the process and getting the answer I have given.
L&M has been providing top quality pipe bags for decades. Many have tried to get a bit of their market share by coming up with some weird configurations and processes, and succeeded for a while, but in the end a good leather bag with the right seasoning is all it takes to make a piper happy.
Bags made by L&M as well as bags by McHarg have undergone a leather change in the last few years due to the demise of Dominion Tanners in Winnepeg. Lawrence Wheaton, a former Dominion employee, told me that the leather was developed to be airtight with no seasoning, and was laquered on the smooth side. This was great leather, and I made dozens of bags out of it, and played them for 5 years or so before replacing them. I spoke with Skip Horween (of Horween leather in Chicago) who makes specialty leathers like Genuine Shell Cordovan and NFL football leather. He told me that he bought the recipie from Dominion when they went belly up, and was prepared to make bagpipe leather. I ordered a side to see what it was like, and was a little dissapointed. I called them and they told me that the laquer used by Dominion was not allowed here in the states (?), and they used a water based laquer, but unfortunately, they put it on the wrong side of the leather. This stuff was 5 bucks a foot! It was OK leather, and did not leak, but it wasn’t the same or as good as the old Dominion stuff. I don’t know who L&M or Mike is getting their leather from these days, but I have not found a source for anything as good as the old Dominion stuff, and have tried leather from 3 other sources.
VanTan makes/made this type of leather, but not in any great quantity or consistency. If I recall the process was called E.L.K. (but it was not elk-hide, it was steer-hide). Mr. Liestman was the last person I talked to about this stuff and he pointed me to VanTan.
I was told that L&M hired a person who was responsible for treating leather at Dominion, and that the new L&M bags are using either exactly the same process or its “equivalent”.
My own experience with recent L&M bags suggests that they are (still) airtight for our purposes without seasoning. I have played one of the “post apocalyptic” bags for the past two years without a noticeable degradation in airtightness.
ok its a 5 year old thread…sorry.
Am resurecting it because:
my 2007 L&M bag, (unseasoned since purchase),
which has been working just peachy for almost 4 years,
quite suddenly and without any aparent cause is leaky as a seive.
Now Im no uilleann genius, but I most certainly know my way around a bagpipe:
and it is DEFINITELY the bag.
I’ve had fantastic results from L&M products for many years, & I will continue to patronize their other products; but something’s amiss concerning the UP bags. Wether its the process, the raw material in stock, or wether certain customers get A-listed, I dont know & dont care.
Well, Im now off to follow the sagest advice on this thread: getting a new bag.
OK, well you’ve had good service for four years with an unseasoned L&M bag. In my opinion that’s not insignificant, though one would hope for a 5 to 10 year lifespan.
It’s not clear what better alternatives are out there, particularly if you prefer unseasoned bags. There are one or two other makers of airtight unseasoned bags, but it isn’t clear that you’ll do better with them; maybe, but some of these makers don’t have long enough track records to know, and other makers have similar records of occasional (or not-so-occasional) failures.
Love L&M Bags, always had good luck with them and didn’t need seasoning. Right now I’m using a non-name brand. I put a little strong tea with some brown sugar, a little honey and glycerin and that seems to be doing the trick.
The honey, glycerin etc. mixtures are designed to wick away moisture through the bag in mouth-blown pipes and are not recommended for bellows pipes. GHB seasonings are all not recommended for bellows pipes either. Neatsfoot oil mixtures will bleed through the bag and cause a mess on the outside. I use the beeswax and Crisco or lard mixture, but would have to report the proportions later. It is found in Denis Brook’s “TheTutor” for the Irish Union Pipes. These have been used for hundreds of years. Dominion leather was treated with neoprene per some reports. A seam leak in an L&M bag can be sucessfully treated with the melted beeswax/lard by running it along the inside of the seam, then filling the bag wth air and pressurizing it to force the mixture into the leaks. This is great for stopping leaks in L&M bags that are not leaking through the leather. Such a treatment can last for years. You can use a larger amount, well massaged into a porous bag, but you must try to remove the excess. There are threads about those who use latex, but I have no experience with it. The oil-soap based mixture can be quite smelly.
CHasR, I will buy your old L&M bag if you want to spend the $$$ on a new one. I will recycle it, treated, to someone who will get years more out of it. Seam leaks are easy to deal with in bags and bellows.
My friend, Im interested…maybe even go one better than your offer…let’s use email- ya got my address, yes? with any luck it may just be an abcense of glue on the seam. we’ll see.
