How to handle a honker?

[Tongle]

D1 honks i.e. makes a horrible noise.
As a newbie I am led to believe this is likely due to the reed not being fully sealed.
I am saving for a qualified repairer to have a proper look at my 2nd hand box for tuning and a general service.
In the meantime is it worth buying some bees wax from Amazon and use the 'painting on with a brush' method to try re-seal it temporarily?
I also have some PVA glue but feel this may just make a mess.

 

[debra]

Accordion wax is beeswax mixed with resin (and a tiny bit of linseed oil).
The first thing you could try is to simply remelt the wax around the offending reed (plate), while pushing it (gently) down.
That may seal the reed plate again for long enough until you can visit a repairer.
Use a soldering iron, not at its hottest temperature.

 

[dak]

D1 honks i.e. makes a horrible noise.
As a newbie I am led to believe this is likely due to the reed not being fully sealed.
I am saving for a qualified repairer to have a proper look at my 2nd hand box for tuning and a general service.
In the meantime is it worth buying some bees wax from Amazon and use the 'painting on with a brush' method to try re-seal it temporarily?
I also have some PVA glue but feel this may just make a mess.

D1? Hey, I thought my accordion was an outlier for having that: the usual "lowest" on a non-bass large accordion is E1.

At any rate, bad wax tends to rather lead to rattling and bad pitch and volume. My money is more on a valve interacting with the reed gap. For example, leather can shrink over time, and when the valve that is supposed to close when playing a reed is just flush with the reed gap edge, you get a tortured honking sound. The solution is to pull the valve off (making sure not to bend any booster) and reglue it such that it covers the reed gap with material to spare again. I've seen valves glued short as well which can help with reed starts but is poison for long-term pitch stability.

 

[debra]

D1? Hey, I thought my accordion was an outlier for having that: the usual "lowest" on a non-bass large accordion is E1.
...

Accordion players often count the octaves differently from how accordion tuners do. I often have confusion between myself and a friend of mine who used to be an accordion teacher and uses a different number scheme.

 

[JKJ]

Accordion players often count the octaves differently from how accordion tuners do. I often have confusion between myself and a friend of mine who used to be an accordion teacher and uses a different number scheme.

I've asked for clarification on the octave count from both an accordion and piano tech. The answer was the same: start counting with 1 (or 0 if you like) for the first octave regardless of the instrument. I personally don't know the "correct" method if one exists in the musical universe. Google gave me this:

American Standard Pitch Notation (ASPN) – Open Music Theory

viva.pressbooks.pub

Mr/Ms Tongle, I had a terrible sounding reed and it was a bad leather. Did you open the box and inspect that reed for a hint? Is the sound with both push and pull or just one direction (could be a hint). For a possibility of more directed answers, maybe think about recording the horrible "honking" and posting an short audio or video clip.

 

[debra]

I've asked for clarification on the octave count from both an accordion and piano tech. The answer was the same: start counting with 1 (or 0 if you like) for the first octave regardless of the instrument. I personally don't know the "correct" method if one exists in the musical universe. Google gave me this:

American Standard Pitch Notation (ASPN) – Open Music Theory

viva.pressbooks.pub

...

The confusion with my friend was exactly that. She started counting on the treble keyboard of the accordion. I start counting using that standard where A4 = 440Hz, and is the second A on the accordion piano-keyboard. I forget whether she calls that A1 or A2 but definitely not A4.
The counting on the accordion's treble keyboard is flawed because you would need negative numbers for the low bass notes...

 

[JKJ]

The confusion with my friend was exactly that. She started counting on the treble keyboard of the accordion. I start counting using that standard where A4 = 440Hz, and is the second A on the accordion piano-keyboard. I forget whether she calls that A1 or A2 but definitely not A4.
The counting on the accordion's treble keyboard is flawed because you would need negative numbers for the low bass notes...

It might eliminate all arbitrary and conflicting opinions on nomenclature by specifying a note by its nominal frequency.

Frequencies are difficult (impossible?) to memorize but there are formulas and charts and maybe even an app for that (besides a tuning app sich as Pano Tuner for notes that aren’t broken or missing).

 

[dak]

The counting on the accordion's treble keyboard is flawed because you would need negative numbers for the low bass notes...

The MIDI standard has no problem starting with C-1 as note (about 8Hz). Admittedly, finding any octave definition in the standard (other than note 60 being "middle C") is close to impossible: all they state is that "middle C" is note 60. And they don't talk about A4 (say) but instead A440. A copout, so to say.

 

[Tongle]

I have probably labelled my D1 note incorrectly. In fact I'm sure I have.
I just put D1 as it is the 1st D on my keyboard.
If middle C is C3 in standard midi then I mean D2.
If it is in standard piano with middle C being C4 then it is D3.
I hope that's not added to the confusion?
I will however check the valve as it may very well need re glueing.
Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Tongle]

Update...I checked the reed block yesterday and could see that the wax seems in really good condition.
The leather valve seemed to also be OK to me....at least not looking majorly different to the others. It had lost a spring (small strip of metal) which I replaced but still sounds bad.
I'll record a sound file.

 

[Tongle]

Here's a sound file. You can hear push and pull rattles.

 

[debra]

The new sound file clearly sounds like the reed is not going through the hole without problems. It may be hitting the reed plate somewhere which might be caused by the reed tongue not being centered properly. You can also hear that the reed is going up in pitch when the note is starting (and back down when it stops). I suggest you take out the reed so you can have a good look at it. Hold it in front of a light source so as to see whether the reed tongue can move freely without touching the reed plate anywhere (except at the rivet). It can be a bit of detective work to find exactly what is causing the problem.

 

[colinm]

Ha ve you identified the correct reed ?

 

[Tongle]

Ha ve you identified the correct reed ?

That's actually a good point as I don't have a testing bed thingy to try it on. Just going by blowing and hearing the pitch. There are numbers stamped on the reeds. Are they significant?

 

[colinm]

Depending on your accordion, when you depress a key, it will allow 1,2,3, or 4 reeds to play, set your couplers so only the one reed plays then find the reed from the holes which are open when you depress that key, there will be 2 reeds to each opening , one for suck and one for blow.

 

[Tongle]

Depending on your accordion, when you depress a key, it will allow 1,2,3, or 4 reeds to play, set your couplers so only the one reed plays then find the reed from the holes which are open when you depress that key, there will be 2 reeds to each opening , one for suck and one for blow.

Yes that makes sense thanks. Mine is 2 reeds and I can see how to isolate one set of reeds on a block.
Is one set of reeds the white keys and the other the black keys?

 

[colinm]

Not necessarily