Bass side bar switch slightly opens the valves.

[New here]

Hi.
I bought my first accordion second hand (bayan style, only 100€) and when I bought it it seemed to be just fine for me. Then back home I noticed the bar switch and that it could change from free bass to standard bass. The standard bass side has some notes that play when I'm not playing anything.
I then did some pocking around and took apart the bass side and noticed that when I switch to standard mode the valves open up just the tiniest bit so air gets through.

So I'm guessing the switch somehow loosens the valves but I have no clue how or why it does it. I can learn to play free bass with this but I'm also kinda excited to fix it to the best of my abilities. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[John Doe]

How irritating!

To fix it yourself you're going to have to carefully work the switch bar back and forth and see what moves. Some part of the mechannism is probably going just slightly farther than it's supposed to in the one position causing the issue.

Where that is... either work it back and forth until you see what's going on then push on the linkage with your finger and see if you can close the pallets (or raise them a bit more which will let you know that you're on to the right piece) to determine how big an adjustment is needed. Probably pretty small. Once you figure out what it is that accomplished that action you can adjust it. Hopefully there's a screw on adjustment at the end of the linkage rod. These can be really fidgety and will probably (if that is the case and the linkage is the issue) will involve popping of a tiny circlip (quite often used, can be popped off without the proper tool but can also be a bear to replace in cramped quarters and can launch itself to parts unknown never to be seen again. Replacing one from a hardware store can be really painful) so that you can screw the adjustable end on or off.

If there is no screw on end to the rod for adjustment something might need to be slightly bent. I surely wouldn't reccomend that if you have no experience with such mechanisms. Accordion repair guy is called for. If you pay triple he might let you watch while he works...

If you stare, push, and prod and still can't suss it out you probably need to bite the bullet and go to a repairman who can probably spot it and adjust it quickly.

If the pallets themselves were the issue- a potentially major mishap- they wouldn't sit flat in either mode.

Good luck.

 

[New here]

How irritating!

To fix it yourself you're going to have to carefully work the switch bar back and forth and see what moves. Some part of the mechannism is probably going just slightly farther than it's supposed to in the one position causing the issue.

Where that is... either work it back and forth until you see what's going on then push on the linkage with your finger and see if you can close the pallets (or raise them a bit more which will let you know that you're on to the right piece) to determine how big an adjustment is needed. Probably pretty small. Once you figure out what it is that accomplished that action you can adjust it. Hopefully there's a screw on adjustment at the end of the linkage rod. These can be really fidgety and will probably (if that is the case and the linkage is the issue) will involve popping of a tiny circlip (quite often used, can be popped off without the proper tool but can also be a bear to replace in cramped quarters and can launch itself to parts unknown never to be seen again. Replacing one from a hardware store can be really painful) so that you can screw the adjustable end on or off.

If there is no screw on end to the rod for adjustment something might need to be slightly bent. I surely wouldn't reccomend that if you have no experience with such mechanisms. Accordion repair guy is called for. If you pay triple he might let you watch while he works...

If you stare, push, and prod and still can't suss it out you probably need to bite the bullet and go to a repairman who can probably spot it and adjust it quickly.

If the pallets themselves were the issue- a potentially major mishap- they wouldn't sit flat in either mode.

Good luck.

Thank you! I'm going to dig around and see if I can spot anything. Don't know if there are any people who repair accordions in my city (in Finland) and I don't have a car so I'd probably have to send it to be fixed if I can't find the fix myself.

 

[debra]

I have no idea what the second and third image are supposed to show us. There are no valves in the pictures.
The fourth image is the "convertor switch" (that's what it's called).
The first image shows how the pistons (the flat metal pieces with bulges coming out of the side) push levers that open the valves. The mechanism should be such that the bulges on the pistons just about touch the levers without pushing them in the slightest bit. It can be a real puzzle to find out which piston is pushing which lever a little bit, so you can bend the lever a tiny bit to relieve that pressure. Even for a skilled repairer it can take quite some time to find the trouble spots and then fix them.

 

[John Doe]

Mr DeB- He's referring to valves when he means pallets. If you look closely at the second and third pictures you'll note a hairline opening across multiple pallets in the top row in the standard position that is not there in the convertor position.

When he's using the switch something is different in the relationship between the arms off the applicable pipe and the push levers. I do not know just what the switch moves to engage the correct pipes with the push levers effecting the change. It appears to be set slightly too high causing the levers to push down on the pipe arms rather than just touching them or sitting barely above them.

How that can be adjusted... I couldn't say without observing the mechanism in action. If the OP is fortunate is may be a simple single moving rod fix- the whole mechanism or regular Stradella is moving too far (or not far enough). I'd lkike to think there is some regulation system for the overall shift- given that muliple pallets are cracked open it would seem to be some common factor that is engaged when the switch is moved.

If it's just three or four notes he might well be able to narrow it down to a mangeable number of arms to adjust on the pipe or or the shaft. By paying close attention you can sometimes simply flick the bass buttons which are associated with the opened pallets in the Stradella position and you can hear/feel a difference -less shaking- in the ones which are pushing down when they should be barely free. This might help though it requires patience. He can get in a world of hurt bending things willy-nilly though.

Beyond that I defer to somebody with substantial experience in convertor mechanisms to address this.

The worst case would seem to be if the whole pipe bracket for the regular Stradella had somehow been slightly displaced- resulting in the thrifty price for the instrument on the second hand market.