Pallet re-facing

Difficulty rating 2 – easy!

Removing and Cleaning

There are a load of good tutorials on the web for re-facing a pallet Lester Bailey has a great series of tutorials on Youtube. Basically you need to get the pallets off this can usually be achieved by pulling them off by hand . once you have got them all off peel off the facings, i use a sharp pen knife, then clean them up and make sure that they are perfectly flat. I use 240 grit sandpaper face up on a flat surface and gently sand the face flat until all of the old facing and glue has gone. Clean out the slot where they attach to the arms so that it fits easily onto the arm without being tight.

Replace the Face

Once they are all clean it is time to glue them on to the new pallet facing material, this is normally felt backed leather . Smear some PVA type glue onto the face of each pallet not too much otherwise the felt will go hard. Then place them sticky side down onto the felt side of the material. Put a book or something similar on top of them to keep them in place whilst they stick.

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Once dry you can slice around each pallet with a sharp knife or a scalpel and you are ready to re attach them.

There are a few options for this, you can glue them, hot glue gun them or may favourite, use reed wax. Firstly put them on the lever arms roughly in place, i then line them up with a straight edge. Check that they are all flat against the soundboard and evenly covering the holes. then glue them in place using your chosen gunk. when you took them off you will have noticed little circles of cloth, if you are using glue you won’t need these, when using wax i replace these to give a little more hold. At first there will probably be a bit of air loss around these new pallet facings, play it for a few days to see if it settles in.