Round bass pallet leather/felt?

[Morne]

I am busy redoing my Hohner Morino IV M. It is the older version that has a bass cassotto. In this system 3 of the 4 bass octaves have individual pallets for each note.

I'm trying to find out if it is possible to buy pre-cut, round leather/felt for this. I'm pretty sure all modern instruments use rectangular pallets, so I suspect this might be wishful thinking. I had a look at a couple of well known online sellers and they only have sheets or pre-cut rectangles (Charlie Marshall, FRM Enterprises, Strings&Boxes, Hohner C-Shop, Carini). I could've missed something, but I don't think so.

I don't have calipers, but here are the approximate dimensions.
Diameter: 16.5mm
Thickness: 2mm (for the leather/felt and it has very little compression left)




It is a weird combo of leather and felt, and then it has an unknown hard layer (not wood) and then a layer of harder leather (almost like reed valve leather). I don't know if the last 2 layers served any real purpose and if that was just what they thought made sense at the time. I am not necessarily expecting to find that - I am just interested in the typical leather/felt layer.

I tried hacking together something to see what's possible using dowels, ice cream tub plastic, felt and (pig) chamois.




That hack job probably isn't a good idea and if I have to go that route I'll just buy the proper sheets and cut it myself. However, it's not the easiest thing to cut proper circles in leather/felt.

 

[Dingo40]

Morne,
I don't know if this will help, but did you know there are punches called "wad cutters" in various diameters, one of which may suit you?
These will cut felt or leather circles from plain pieces,
For illustration only:

Rennsteig 9-Piece Arch Punch/Wad Punch Set in roll-up pouch : Amazon.com.au: Home Improvement

Rennsteig 9-Piece Arch Punch/Wad Punch Set in roll-up pouch : Amazon.com.au: Home Improvement

www.amazon.com.au

I have used similar wad cutting punches for cutting felt and leather circles myself. For best results, I rested the "stock" material on the end grain of a thick piece of wood, held on end, firmly in a vise. ( Hit the punch with a hammer or mallet)?

 

[Morne]

Thanks a lot for that suggestion, Dingo! I had to look around first because searching for "wadcutter" got me bullets. I know my cutting skills aren't that good, but not sure if shooting the material would be cleaner...

I now found a few places locally selling hollow punches (that seems to be the term used here). There are 16mm versions available. So then my next silly question: is this going to over/undercut the size if I use the pre-glued pallet material? I cannot go too thick here otherwise the whole mechanism is going to need adjustment, so the material will probably be 1.8mm or 2.5mm (based on what's available online). I can manage a hammer and a plank, so this might be the way to go.

 

[JIM D.]

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