Hohner Morino IV N Pallet Felt Replacement

[DerekL]

Hi, I have just finished replacing the pallet felts on my Hohner Morino and thought that a few pictures of the process might come in handy for anyone wishing to carry out the same repair.

I bought the accordion a few months ago fully aware that it had sticking keys on both the treble and bass. I had read elsewhere on this forum about Morinos with similar faults, in particular where the use of the incorrect glue was used to attached the felt to the pallets. This turned out to be the fault so I decided to carry out the repairs myself.

I think the accordion has suffered this fault since new and as a result it's never really been played much, the inside is like new. Overall I'm happy with the way it has turned out.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Regards
Derek

 

[debra]

Looks good so far. Many of the "Klebemorino" accordions were "treated" with talcum powder as a temporary fix for the sticky pallets, and that powder literally goes everywhere. A Klebemorino can be repaired (with new pallets) but when everything is covered in powder it becomes a much harder job...

 

[debra]

Having disassembled a Morino N series keyboard only last week I noticed, like in this one, that the pallets inside the cassotto are less thick than the pallets outside the cassotto. i wonder what the reason for that is. (Of course you want to replace pallets with new ones of the same thickness as the old ones, so you need two different thicknesses.)

 

[Tom]

Hi, I have just finished replacing the pallet felts on my Hohner Morino and thought that a few pictures of the process might come in handy for anyone wishing to carry out the same repair.

I bought the accordion a few months ago fully aware that it had sticking keys on both the treble and bass. I had read elsewhere on this forum about Morinos with similar faults, in particular where the use of the incorrect glue was used to attached the felt to the pallets. This turned out to be the fault so I decided to carry out the repairs myself.

I think the accordion has suffered this fault since new and as a result it's never really been played much, the inside is like new. Overall I'm happy with the way it has turned out.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Regards
Derek

Looking good, good repair. What kind of glue did you use on the felt? And did the old felt come off pretty easy?

 

[JIM D.]

Not only Morino's (Excelsior Made) but some of the 60's era Excelsiors had the same problem of sticking valve padding.
In the past I've had a few in my shop to correct the problem. In the past my procedure was to remove the old padding
& replace with new. The repair is time consuming and resulted in a normally higher labor cost not to mention parts.
Well 2 months ago an Excelsior Symphony showed up with the same problem but by this time I discovered a new product
that now results in less labor & parts cost. ----

FRM Enterprises – Accordion Parts and Piermaria Accordions – Valve Padding

frment.com

The padding is self adhesive and I used the 5054 (1mm) padding. With this new padding I cut it to the correct pallet size and
applied new facings to the old valve padding. I was quite sure I would have to realign the pallets but 90% worked fine without
realignment, I only had to realign 10% of the valves. The process resulted in less cost to a happy customer.
I'm a belt & suspender guy so I ordered a supply to do another 4/5 reed box. There's still a lot of them out there and with
my luck I'll be sure to see one.

 

[debra]

Not only Morino's (Excelsior Made) but some of the 60's era Excelsiors had the same problem of sticking valve padding.
In the past I've had a few in my shop to correct the problem. ...

Actually, most if not all manufacturers in and around Castelfidardo used to get many parts from the same supplier (Carini) so when the self-adhesive pads with the problem were introduced they all started using it and did so for a few months until the "sticky problem" was discovered. I have seen a sticky Bugari for instance. The Hohner Morino (made by Excelsior) was very popular at the time which is why the problem became known as the "Klebemorino" but the problem was common to accordions produced by "everyone" in that 3 month period.
Sadly the accordion industry is not like the car industry and some other industries nowadays. There was never a recall for the instruments made with the sticky pallets. Basically all unlucky accordion buyers were stuck with the problem and dealers were not very helpful either and resorted to half-baked solutions like the talcum powder that made things worse in the long run.

 

[Tom]

Not only Morino's (Excelsior Made) but some of the 60's era Excelsiors had the same problem of sticking valve padding.
In the past I've had a few in my shop to correct the problem. In the past my procedure was to remove the old padding
& replace with new. The repair is time consuming and resulted in a normally higher labor cost not to mention parts.
Well 2 months ago an Excelsior Symphony showed up with the same problem but by this time I discovered a new product
that now results in less labor & parts cost. ----

FRM Enterprises – Accordion Parts and Piermaria Accordions – Valve Padding

frment.com

The padding is self adhesive and I used the 5054 (1mm) padding. With this new padding I cut it to the correct pallet size and
applied new facings to the old valve padding. I was quite sure I would have to realign the pallets but 90% worked fine without
realignment, I only had to realign 10% of the valves. The process resulted in less cost to a happy customer.
I'm a belt & suspender guy so I ordered a supply to do another 4/5 reed box. There's still a lot of them out there and with
my luck I'll be sure to see one.

Thanks Jim,

Do I understand that you did not have to take off the old padding (the leather or felt that blocks the air hole?)? So you put the self adhesive 1 mm padding right over the existing? I'm getting a lot of treble air leakage on that La Tosca and this could be the way to go.

 

[DerekL]

Having disassembled a Morino N series keyboard only last week I noticed, like in this one, that the pallets inside the cassotto are less thick than the pallets outside the cassotto. i wonder what the reason for that is. (Of course you want to replace pallets with new ones of the same thickness as the old ones, so you need two different thicknesses.)

Paul, you are correct the pallets inside the cassotto have thinner felt than the ones outside, I ordered the correct parts from Hohner in Germany which took about 2 weeks to arrive in Scotland. I have no idea why they are different thicknesses.

Derek

 

[DerekL]

Looking good, good repair. What kind of glue did you use on the felt? And did the old felt come off pretty easy?

Hi Tom, I used glue supplied by Hohner in Germany, in all honesty it looks and smells like PVA glue but I thought I'd best use the correct one since it appears the glue was the problem in the first place! It comes in a 300g jar which is enough to do about 20 accordions!

The old felt came off fairly easy by just pulling it off then I used paint thinners to clean of the stickiness left over from the glue.

Derek

 

[JIM D.]

As for accordions with different pallet size felts in the cassotto , well the cassotto pallets simply have less travel from their seated
position than the pallets outside of the tone chamber. And in the case of that LaTosca, if the leather facings have hardened with
age, the (1mm) pads may just do the trick.

 

[JerryPH]

I was one of the people that had this issue with my Morino VI N, but only on the left hand (as if having this issue on a 185 bass accordion wasn't enough... lol). I had mine professionally repaired, all the felts on the bass replaced (ever see the number of parts on a Free Bass unit? SCAREY! ), and I had this accordion since brand new and it only happened after I stopped playing for 35+ years and returned. I am half convinced that had I not stopped, the problem would not have really manifested itself as much, if at all... lol

Today, I feel this accordion's bass side is as good as new or better. Next year I'll work on the right hand and address all of the valves on the right hand side both that are starting to act up and the ones that are (currently doesn't affect anything yet, but I know its there... and that is enough for me... haha)

 

[debra]

I was one of the people that had this issue with my Morino VI N, but only on the left hand (as if having this issue on a 185 bass accordion wasn't enough... lol). I had mine professionally repaired, all the felts on the bass replaced (ever see the number of parts on a Free Bass unit? SCAREY! ), and I had this accordion since brand new and it only happened after I stopped playing for 35+ years and returned. I am half convinced that had I not stopped, the problem would not have really manifested itself as much, if at all... lol

Today, I feel this accordion's bass side is as good as new or better. Next year I'll work on the right hand and address all of the valves on the right hand side both that are starting to act up and the ones that are (currently doesn't affect anything yet, but I know its there... and that is enough for me... haha)

I remember you said before that your Morino was one of the victims. Lucky for you it was repaired correctly (at least on the bass side) by replacing the felts and not butchered by using talcum powder.
The Morino VI N is a bit of a handful... it's actually the only accordion I know that has the bass side set up completely for 60 notes (low E to high E flat) but then only offers 58 of these notes on the melody bass. (The upper D and E flat do play in the standard bass and in my experience it's clear that many tuners forget about these two notes.) So you have 60 bass pallets.

 

[debra]

As for accordions with different pallet size felts in the cassotto , well the cassotto pallets simply have less travel from their seated
position than the pallets outside of the tone chamber. And in the case of that LaTosca, if the leather facings have hardened with
age, the (1mm) pads may just do the trick.

Good point. Especially on the Morino the pallets inside the cassotto open very little, so even with a thin felt there won't be any clacking noise when the key is released.

 

[oldbayan]

Great job! Well worth the effort.