Bellows End Gaskets

[Geofflowes]

Hello, The chamois gaskets on the end of the bellows assembly of my Lachenal anglo have been damaged by the use of various sealants [probably of the motor car engine type].They are not salvageable. Is there a recommended grade and thickness of chamois for this purpose? Thanks Geoff.

[Chris Ghent]

Hello, The chamois gaskets on the end of the bellows assembly of my Lachenal anglo have been damaged by the use of various sealants [probably of the motor car engine type].They are not salvageable. Is there a recommended grade and thickness of chamois for this purpose? Thanks Geoff.

 

Geoff,

 

the only chamois I have found available in Australia all tends to be around .5mm, and this is just adequate, thicker would be nicer. The source is places like Repco who sell small squares as car cleaning equipment, and some hardware stores. Be careful, most are not genuine chamois, rather they are synthetic. It is always marked which it is, but the packaging is similar.

 

It is important that the chamois on the reedpan partitions and the end of the bellows be at the same height. If it is not then you may need to shift the reedpan blocks.

 

Chris

[Frank Edgley]

I don't think it's necessary to use chamois. I had a Dipper fitted out with regular type leather, and I have seen a few Wheatstones with it. Of course, it was very soft and pliable. If you don't use chamois, you have a lot more choices of thickness etc.

[d.elliott]

I have had good thick chamois from David Leese. All I had to do was specify the size and depth of the bellows frame. I have seen ordinary leather but it was badly torn where a reed screw had caught it.

 

Dave

[david robertson]

For what it's worth, I recently found this website which offers 500g bags of chamois leather pieces. For £1 you can buy a bag of strips sufficient to replace all the rib gaskets on dozens of concertinas, while £2.50 buys a half-kilo bag of quite big pieces - certainly more than enough to deal with the bellows ends. Naturally there is some variability in thickness, but there's so much of it that finding enough of a consistent thickness is no problem. Given that you can easily pay £15 for a decent wash-leather, I reckon this is a terrific bargain. In fact, you'll almost certainly have more than enough left to sew a few pieces together and make a decent wash-leather!

Regards,

David

[Geofflowes]

Thank you for your replies. There are so many out there willing to share their knowlege and experience. I saw the tip on using shims of card behind the chamois on another thread and thought ,yes that makes sense, it's often these little things which seem so obvious later that makes things easier.

 

I did make a gasket for a nasty chinese job which arrived without one [ obviously no one tries these things before sending them out]. For this I used a bright yellow cleaning cloth from the supermarket, it worked but I feel the Lachenal deserves better. Best wishes to all for Xmas and new year. Geoff.