[Adam Tombs]

Just a suggestion, you could try treating the gasket with some form of rubber conditioner. I use silicone spray lube on window seals in cars and it does soften the rubber and allow for putting a little bounce back in to it. The other thing you could do is use beeswax to stop your leaks. Piano Accordion repairers have been using it for a long time to good effect…

Another way to find leaks is to use a little dish washing detergent diluted in water on the supected area. Saves dunking the entire object in water and you get nice big bubbles to indicate where the leaks are, it’s an old outback trick used to fix punctured tubeless tyres while the tyres are still on the vehicle….

My piano 36 has a little bit of a leak where the water ‘valve’ is located cracks etc but I never worried about it as it requires very little breath to play at good volume.