Harmonium pallet timber repair tricks

Hi all

I would like to ask tips and tricks that you have used for repairing cracks in pallet timber.
I have Schiedmayer harmonium that has several cracks in timber that appeared during winter. This instrument has been several years in a small isle at sea close to city of Vaasa in small church and now when it was moved into house cracks appeared due to low humidity during Jan-March.
I have received couple of methods about how to repair it, but I thought it doesn't harm to ask third opinion. Below is link to picture of cracks.
You can reply also in french.



Best Regards Jaakko

After some intensive research of different glue types, mixing portions and tests some progress is visible. All 61 holes are now repaired from Pedal Bass/Cremona set of reeds . Cor Anglais and Flute section is clamped and waiting to dry. Below couple of pictures and that area was least cracked and where you can see where cracks were.

Before:



After:



It's good to have room in house where you can warm wood before applying glue like old days at furniture factories...... and I'm referring to Finnish Sauna.

I need to wait until tomorrow to open clamps and see how I managed overall this job, then some sanding and applying coat of shellac to prevent future cracks to appear or that is what I hope.

Regards Jaakko

Wow, nice job !!!

So how did you finally do it? I have the same problem ih one of my instruments. The result looks very good!

Thanks Mathieu and Christoph for comments.

I would not celebrate yet as it takes some time still wood to dry totally but at this point I'm also happy my self how this has gone so far......
There is no secret rather than trial and error of hide glue mixing proportions. I made several trials with hide glue patch to find out how much I dare to add water to make glue as thin as possible.
Then heated wood and applied glue with syringe to cracks, waited while to allow glue to penetrate to cracks and then clamp. I think in my case it was easy to glue as timbre had twisted quite a lot.
I added water 4 to 1 ratio, but this applies only this patch of glue and it should be tested how glue that you are using is behaving. Even I have used hide glue for 10+ years this was quite horrible task and waiting how it finally looks, but lets hope that cracks wont appear after wood is dry. I have another thought how this could be done also but that I need to test with my Alexandre, but first this harmonium needs to be finished.
Quickly looked Cor Anglais and Flute area and seems that it is in one piece again.
Now just maybe I can continue ordering new leathers and felt for valves..... then feeder bellows needs to be repaired, tuning, couple decorative pieces to case and so on.... list is endless.
But I'll keep you posted how this ends up in long run.

Regards Jaakko

OK now clamps have been removed and light sanding applied to wood. No additional filler required what is pretty amazing and hopefully wood doesn't shirk. Next I'll apply shellac to seal wood and hopefully prevent cracks to appear during dry winter months.

Pictures below taken from Pedal Bass 16' and Cremona 8' reed set area where damages were worst. Wood was lifted 3-5mm from surface level and it was easy to apply glue . I must admit that this was pretty broken and I hope that it will last another 100 years from now. I thought that first I'll try to repair this and then continue with rest of the instrument.... now I must continue....


Before:



After:



Regards Jaakko

Update to Schiedmayer repair status.
I waited couple of months to see how pallet timber starts to behave and I was very pleased to see that after wood was dried only minor cracks appeared.
I filled those with wood filler (maybe not the best approach.... shame on me) and sanded wood to flat. Then applied couple coats of blonde shellac just to see that filler didn't act like wood and now there is color difference but it's not visible at the end.... but I'll know that it's there under the pallets
Now there are new felt's and leathers and action is adjusted evenly with tension gauge and force for key's is even for every note.

Below couple pictures.





Action seems bit different compared to French manufacturers having 3 springs for each key. I'll take some pictures while assembling it back together.

While dismantling action I found picture from past..... I didn't know that Batman exist as early as 1893.......



Best Regards Jaakko