G'day Selby,

Unfortunately (pace Anahata) the bellows of old melodeons can end up pretty well "porous". The bellows of most cheaper German instruments, of the early part of the 20th century, were almost entirely made of a single piece of cardboard - 'clicked' with all the folds and cutouts in a single pass of the clicking press, assembled round a jig/block and finished with the minimum of fine 'skiver' leather and coloured paper panels.

After many years of use the bellows, as on a circa 1930 Hohner #2915 (old blond 'pokerwork' model) I still have, eventually lose the necessary stiffness to compress the air - instead of bulging out at the pleats - and are so thin ... and now so worn ... that they begin to allow air to escape straight through the cardboard. I stuck with that bellows as long as I could ... because it was very pretty (a light warm green, complimenting the blond wood tones of the accordion) ... but eventually had to find a new firm bellows.

The improvement was astonishing (and ... No! There was nothing that would have saved that old bellows - short of totally covering every square centimetre with something like the ultra-fine kangaroo hide (0.1 mm to 0.14 mm - yet strong as silk!) I use for concertina bellows patching. Even with a leather as fine as this, the bellows would have ended up noticeably fatter ... and less flexible than a good new set.

Regards,

Bob