Kem - Britain - Beginner

[Kem]

Hi everyone, my username is Kem and I come from the county of Somerset within the United Kingdom.

I've been interested in learning the accordion for a few years now and I never really thought I had the time to learn it, I now have the time so I thought I'd learn.

I started by first acquiring an accordion, I'm what you would consider "poor" in terms of money so I had to find something that was cheaper than the typical £300 you'd spend on an accordion. I was aware I might be buying something that's broken and would need TLC and repair work to make it usable.

After a bit of research I discovered just how expensive it was to get into the instrument as opposed to say, a guitar or violin which retail for around £70-£150. Not dissuaded by the thought of "maybe this instrument isn't for people like me" I went ahead and spent a few days looking around at used accordions in the hope of finding one that was mistakenly assumed "broken" by it's owner. (One man's trash is another man's treasure.)

I found a piano-accordion (I wanted a button box but wow, that's a dramatic price difference) and turns out it's a Chinese factory made(?) Cipelino - on eBay for £75 (£87.58 with shipping and tax) - the seller actually lied about the condition of the instrument, but that's okay, I'm a forgiving person so I don't hold grudges or feel slighted, despite the no-return policy (cheeky seller, haha.)

When it arrived around 7-8 of the bass buttons were stuck, depressed and several of the piano keys were out of place (on top or under other keys.) The exterior didn't look to bad, it was the keys that were a mess. The bellows were fine, no holes at all. It actually looks like someone took a whitener to the keys and white areas on the accordion as it looks nearly new - once the keys are aligned.

I've fixed the keys on the exterior and have opened up the accordion. One thing is actually really confusing to me, it has these three buttons on the piano key side, above the buttons (black toggle switches) which I assume alter the sound of the notes somehow - anyway, so these three toggles wouldn't depress (only the middle one would) I opened the front grill and then took the nails for the piano side out and took it off, some silly sod had really wrecked the interior mechanism for these toggles. They must have REALLY dropped it hard at some point, to where the mechanism had come out of it's seating, bent metal, a mess, the "cowboy" who attempted to repair it had screwed a foreign screw that permanently locked the mechanism into the middle-button toggled state. (My guess is someone wanted a quick turn-around without expending effort to actually fix it.) So with two pairs of a pliers and a screwdriver later, I had reseated the mechanism, bent all the metal back to where it should have been and restored the ability to toggle between the three buttons. I don't even understand the thinking behind the screw to be honest, it took me less than 5 minutes to seat the mechanism back in and have it working as it should've been.

Anyway- this post is getting a bit long, let's move along (sorry for no pictures, I already fixed it and it didn't occur to me until after to take pictures.)

Now the exterior of the accordion is fine, all the bass button action feels fine, three of the piano keys seem to be getting stuck (assuming heavy dirt and lint beneath the keys, plan to clean it out tomorrow 4-3-15) A beginner glance at the bass key mechanisms seem to be fine, all straight and linked up, each key makes sound as does the piano keys.

I honestly know nothing about the reeds. If someone could post the anatomy of a reed and how a working reed should look, that would be great! The reed seems to have a piece of fabric (that one would assume blocks air) and then a tiny piece of metal that covers the fabric to hold it close to the reed so the fabric can work. Some of these reeds are missing a piece of metal and I'm assuming any metal would work so long as it holds it close, I was considering paperclips, heated then flatted with a hammer to thin it - someone tell me if this would work or not. I pride functionality over looks and so long as something works, I don't mind. I'm not sure I plan on reselling this anyway, to me this is both an experience in repairing it myself (I'd like to be able to repair my own instrument) and a "toe in the water" instrument to see if the accordion works for me and my personality.

The entire thing is out of tune and I have no instrument experience at all so I can't tune it by ear or otherwise. I'm not able to spend the money a music shop would ask for a tuning. But that's beside the point, I need to make sure the reeds work so if I did acquire the money the shop wouldn't try telling me the reeds were broke "so we had to replace them, the total will be £## extra for parts and labour." So I'm not really sure how I'll tune it, though a friend of a friend is reportedly a "musical guy" who has a bit of a collection of instruments, so he might be able to help out in tuning it.

Ah, where was I? Right, rambling - so it's not in terrible condition, nothings falling out (so far only one thing has unglued, one of the rubber feet, the mighty superglue shall fix it!) and all the keys play noise, to one degree or another.

Oh yeah- there's one other issue, where one of the pads connected to a piano key, the pad doesn't seem to go down all the way after using the key, which causes air to continue coming out of the hole and then having this permanent note playing, I'm not sure how to fix it, but it could be that the spring needs a bit of a stretch or replacement, so that's not something to fret about.

So my problem areas are reeds and tuning. Reeds, aren't a huge issue, most of them APPEAR to be fine (I have no ear yet) and if they are broken, I can probably acquire some replacement reeds and upon initial inspection, it probably only needs maybe 5-10 of the reeds replaced, I'm willing to gamble if there's any issue with the sound, it's due to lint or dust and not a broken reed, the interior is very dusty from lack of interior care.

I *think* I got a good deal, sure it's a chinese make, sure it has factory reeds which seem frowned upon, but damned if it's not cheaper than a large majority of the accordions I've seen and it does actually play sound, so it's not as "broken" as the seller assumed.



TLR
I think with a bit of help from you veterans and a bit more fiddling, I can get a working instrument that, with the right care, could last years.


If I offended anyone by suggesting jerry-rigging my accordion to get it to work, I didn't mean to offend, I just love that older mindset that everything can be fixed, no matter how you live or what your income is.

I would also like to finish by saying I'm not a "money" person - to me it's an illusion. I don't consider people "poor" or "wealthy" by a monetary standard, in the same way I don't see happiness and contentment being correlated to wealth. I may lack money, but to me the knowledge I have and the ability to work and barter for things is more wealth than a fancy piece of paper with ink and a lady on it.

Warm regards-
Kem

PS-I'll make an update in this thread when I make a post in the repair section - I plan on taking a few pictures of the reeds, so I can get your guys' opinions on whether or not they look broken. Expect that around 4-3-15, in the evening.

 

[Glenn]

Hi Kem,
Welcome to the forum.
Quite an opening story.
You appear to have got to an advanced stage with just common sense and practical skills.
My question to you however is, do you enjoy playing it?
I assume the purpose of buying an accordion was to play it and not repair it.

 

[dunlustin]

Welcome - you certainly are determined and, I suspect, patient.
Typing "Accordion repair" into a search will get you started.
There's no shortage of good will here so keep asking.

 

[TomBR]

Hi Kem,
Sounds like you got a real project box there - well done you for getting as far as you have so far. There is a huge amount of info on accordion repair out there on the interweb, far more than there was a few years back when I got started. Good news is that unlike some instruments, you can do pretty much everything with inexpensive tools on the kitchen table, you dont need a workshop.

Well worth a visit to Charlie Marshalls website for parts
http://www.cgmmusical.co.uk/CGM_Musical_Services/Welcome.html

But assuming your aim is actually to play rather than repair, the dedication youve shown already makes me wonder if anyone here has an unused accordion to lend you or sell at a low price to get you started. Even a 12 bass would mean you could start playing and learn a few tunes. I dont have anything to hand at present, or Id be offering.
Cheers,
Tom

 

[artelagro]

Hi Kem. Welcome to the gang.
As a first step I would suggest going to the website that one of our main professional repairers (JimD) often quotes i.e. http://www.accordionrevival.com/
This is a great site and covers near enough every problem you are likely to come across.
I am still reading the beginners pages but getting better day by day
Good luck with your box
Garth

 

[Kem]

Hi Kern,
Welcome to the forum.
Quite an opening story.
You appear to have got to an advanced stage with just common sense and practical skills.
My question to you however is, do you enjoy playing it?
I assume the purpose of buying an accordion was to play it and not repair it.

Thanks haha, I actually havent played it yet, its not in tune and there are probably reeds that need replacing anyway.
I certainly enjoy the full sound an accordion generates, to me there are some instruments that sound good alone and others that require accompanying instruments before it really reaches its potential. The accordion is one of those instruments that can reach its potential without needing a band to fill out the sound or back it up.

Good news is that unlike some instruments, you can do pretty much everything with inexpensive tools on the kitchen table, you dont need a workshop.

But assuming your aim is actually to play rather than repair, the dedication youve shown already makes me wonder if anyone here has an unused accordion to lend you or sell at a low price to get you started. Even a 12 bass would mean you could start playing and learn a few tunes. I dont have anything to hand at present, or Id be offering.
Cheers,
Tom

Yeah, I really noticed that this type of instrument is more simple than it appears from the exterior (though the bass mechanisms would need reference if I needed to fix those!) I was surprised honestly.

Thats real nice of you, even if someone was able to sell me one Ive already committed to this one for now. I probably cant get the money back that I spent on it by selling unless I fix it anyway, so either way it needs some attention and at least I can say I fixed it myself.

As a first step I would suggest going to the website that one of our main professional repairers (JimD) often quotes i.e. http://www.accordionrevival.com/

Ive been to this website once or twice, the lack of pictures can be a tad confusing as Im not aware of the terminology for parts. I definitely have taken a look at it though, I only read through the third page which is devoted to retuning.


Thanks everyone.
Im looking for an instrument for life and so far, the ability to repair it by hand without much knowledge is a real draw to the instrument. Especially since I dont use much money.

 

[Kem]

Well, unfortunately, no pictures of the reeds tonight. I borrowed someone's iPad that was at hand to take pictures of all of the reeds, the device seems to save the image as image.jpg so when I uploaded them to dropbox, only one of the images saved (they just overwrote each other) and it's not any of the six I wanted to upload, I shan't make the same mistake twice! Pictures on 5/3/15!

In other news, today I went through and fixed all the piano keys. Some of them would stick and such, the underlying metal that holds the axis pin and the spring hooks (I don't know the terms, this is just what I called them based on what they do!) must have been knocked a bit loose when the original owner dropped it, some of the keys were sticking under the actual celluloid casing of the accordion (one key even put down another totally different key aswell as itself!) and one of the keys had a weak spring, so I had to stretch the spring so it would push the pad back over the hole to stop it from constantly playing the one note over everything else. I also found that one of the keys had some resin/sap type glue beneath it that had dripped and dried mid-drip which was causing the note to only depress a little bit, I used some pliers to snap this resin off and now the key fully depresses (pad now allows air to flow completely.)

Putting the keys and springs back on was an actual nightmare, it ended up taking 2-3 hours and if ANY of the springs snap in future, I plan on buying a bag of springs with those little rings on either end to use instead (the current springs work just like key rings) as it would make taking and putting the keys back on a ten minute process if they should ever break or snap.

Now that I have an understanding of how the accordion works, I'm actually semi-interested in trying to make an accordion-esque instrument out of scrap wood, factory reeds, some bellows from a completely trashed accordion I could find for £20 on eBay/patching up the holes and using toggle/light switches on either side of it. Each switch would open/close a reed's airflow, therefore using combinations of toggled switches would create chords (maybe have some group reed toggle switches too for bass?), it's a rough idea in my head, but it could be a fun project when and if I get the time. I have a lot of things I want to get done this year, including but not limited to: homebrew sweet apple cider, sweet plum jerkum and FINALLY making my garden into a garden instead of a hostile wasteland of dirt!