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Musty smell in an old case

Stephen D

Stephen D

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St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Anyone have ideas or experience on how to get rid of a musty smell inside an old vintage Titano case? Have tried airing it out in the sun and an open box of baking sofa together with some kind of ‘magic odor eating’ product. Nothing seems to be working. Thanks 😊
 
The best way I’ve found is to throw it in the rubbish heap and buy another one. Most accordion shops will sell new cases, but many have a supply of used cases in good condition.
 
work and patience

first, vacuum it out thoroughly

foaming carpet or upholstery spray cleaner, stiff bush to work it iinto the fabric,
wait awhile, vaccuum it out thoroughly

repeat

place in the direct sun light.. solar has a purification and bleaching ability..
do this for several sunny days

an old sock with 4 oz. or so of MothCrystals or morhballs,
close the case, leave it for a month

if you have an Ozonator, you can dose the case several times

you can also rip the old fabric out and glue in a new fabric liner

if the case was that bad, then the accordion needs thorough cleaning
as well to destroy mildew spores.. alchohol spray and clean cotton rag

do not overspray, spray sparingly, use 70 or 90 % alcohol, not
the standard 50% mix at the dollar store

remember to work and clean the edges/sides of the keys..
cotton q-tip swabs in there.. spray the tips then wipe
 
If you are diligent and have some DIY skills, you are looking at a nice half day working on the case and may even need to rinse and repeat the process a few times.

Now we start to see why, if this was done by a professional and paid a fair wage, how fast it gets up to the price of the work exceeding the value of the box.

Times 2 or 3 that if you need to do the same on the accordion that was in it... because if it was, that smell and all the accompanying spores are now inside the accordion as well.
 
Stephen D said:
Anyone have ideas or experience on how to get rid of a musty smell inside an old vintage Titano case?
Click to expand...
Welcome Stephen🙂👍.
Regarding the case:
You will need lots of patience.🙂
Simply airing it in a warm, dry space with vacuuming will work in time (several months, if not a year).
Another suggestion would be to get some bicarbonate of soda (baking section in the supermarket) and place a heaped clean sardine-tin full of it in the closed case ( in a warm dry space). Replenish weekly.
You should get a good result within a month.
Good luck!🙂
See here:
 
It may have hidden that smell but likely did not address the reason why it smelled like that.

Some Lysol spray disinfectant may work better?
 
Something that I've rarely seen suggested that should work well is to use a small ozone generator

Ozone is naturally occurring and is what you're actually opening windows for when you want some fresh air, or leave something outside to 'air it out' - but it can be created indoors quite easily with a bit of electricity. bigclivedotcom on youtube has some great videos explaining ozone generators.
 
The odor, unfortunately, seems like the cat that always returns. As has been said, life is too short to store your accordion in a smelly case. Ditch it and buy a backpack or replacement case. Just saying.....
 
petch said:
Something that I've rarely seen suggested that should work well is to use a small ozone generator

Ozone is naturally occurring and is what you're actually opening windows for when you want some fresh air, or leave something outside to 'air it out' - but it can be created indoors quite easily with a bit of electricity. bigclivedotcom on youtube has some great videos explaining ozone generators.
Click to expand...
Be super careful with those... improperly used can cause SERIOUS harm to anything living... including humans!
 
Last edited:
I have fair first hand experience with the effects of ozone as a result of (now decades ago, pre-marriage) extensive tinkering with static electric generators (Wimshurst machine, Van der Graff, and the infamous coat hanger neon sign transformer mad scientist Jacob's Ladder which latter finally caused the wife to force me to kick it all to the curb post marriage). All of those generators create a lot of ozone as byproducts of their operation. The stuff really does eat away at fabrics and rubber products (and probably your lungs- what the heck, I have two so there's a spare...).

The ill effects were not subtle.

The average Amazon ozone air refresher probably generates a lot less ozone- but enclosed in a closed case I'd figure your problem with odor would lessen- as would anything remotely usable in the case interior.

Having an extensive sordid background with "vintage" brass instruments I am very familiar with the horrendous smells that can become part and parcel of old cases. Rug shampoo, baking soda, assorted scent removers and "fabric blasters" as well as soap and water followed by days open in the sun had a limited effectiveness. If the smell sometimes seemed diminished to me ("diminished", not "gone") prevailing public opinion was that mainly my sense of smell had simply taken a beating.

If I had a better suggestion I'd offer it, but I figure "do your best and live with it" or "time for another case..."

May good fortune smile upon you-
Henry

My apologies for the inevitable typos which creep in despite multiple proof reading.
 
Dingo40 said:
Ozone (O3) is a highly reactive form (allotrope) of oxygen .
Exposure to ozone can be harmful to humans, microbes and fabrics.
On fabrics it acts as a bleach and will accelerate ageing.
See here:
www.epa.gov

What is Ozone? | US EPA

description of ozone for ozone and your patients' health training for health care providers
www.epa.gov www.epa.gov
And here:
Click to expand...
With respect, that EPA page is nonsense. They seem to have taken the effects of running an unsuitably large ozone generator in a small space and concluded that all ozone generators are bad because they were able to raise the ozone levels above safe amounts. Obviously excess amounts will be bad just like excess anything is bad. Don't buy an industrial scale generator for your 1 bedroom apartment, it's common sense. Too much oxygen will also harm you, no need for dodgy government agencies telling everyone high oxygen levels are toxic is there?

Let's look at what they actually say together

In one study (Shaughnessy and Oatman, 1991), a large ozone generator recommended by the manufacturer for spaces "up to 3,000 square feet," was placed in a 350 square foot room and run at a high setting. The ozone in the room quickly reached concentrations that were exceptionally high--0.50 to 0.80 ppm which is 5-10 times higher than public health limits
Click to expand...
Surprisingly if you use 10x the usual amount of something you exceed safe concentrations! What does this even prove? Should we not use any cleaning products that wouldn't be safe if used at 10x the concentration?

In an EPA study, several different devices were placed in a home environment, in various rooms, with doors alternately opened and closed, and with the central ventilation system fan alternately turned on and off. The results showed that some ozone generators, when run at a high setting with interior doors closed, would frequently produce concentrations of 0.20 - 0.30 ppm. A powerful unit set on high with the interior doors opened achieved values of 0.12 to 0.20 ppm in adjacent rooms. When units were not run on high, and interior doors were open, concentrations generally did not exceed public health standards
Click to expand...
Again, if you run a suitably sized generator at a suitable level it... does not exceed the healthy amount? Shocker!? So an appropriately sized unit is completely within health standards is what they're saying here. So running it for a few hours to help kill off any mold/mildew is not going to do you or anyone else any damage.

The other link, the California Air Resources Board one, just seems to state that ozone will damage things - which is true, it will oxidize things (that's what we're wanting it to do in this application). It doesn't say what damage will occur and how long it takes to occur or how many parts per million were in the air when this damage occurred. That lack of information seems to be a common trend.



Also, ozone generators are extremely common in Japanese homes, yet they have one of the longest life expectancies in the world. If you've recently bought an 'air purifier' then it will almost certainly contain an ozone generator.

If you're still unconvinced

The Practical Application of Ozone Gas as an Antifungal (Antimold) Agent

Use of ozone to reduce molds in a cheese ripening room

Ozone therapy: an overview of pharmacodynamics, current research, and clinical utility

An automated room disinfection system using ozone is highly active against surrogates for SARS-CoV-2

Inactivation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by gaseous ozone treatment

Benefits of ozone on mortality in patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis
 
Given that I'm sitting here haphzardly blatting out drivel on the internet vice lying in an oygen tent I'm inclined to believe that you'd have to go quite some to do a job on your health.

That said, the amounts from my ozone generation tinkering in the basement really did cause numerous rubber products to flat decay in pretty short order. Pretty irritating.

Placing an ozone generator in a closed case and letting her rip might result in really frail lining and any foam padding would probably give up the ghost. Might well be free of any mold though... couldn't prove it either way by me.

As far as room /house ozone effects- used with reason it may well be fine and quite pleasant and even potentially helpful. It's that "with reason" part...

One notes that all the larger ozone generators for sale come with prominent caution labels on their use in enclosed spaces that are inhabited. Of course there's that "abundance of caution" generated by lawsuit averse legal departments and then there's that most uncommon attribute, "common sense" which really ought to be considered the final arbiter. The stuff surely has noxious potential at sufficiently high levels. The whole notion for smelly case use is that it will kill the mold- mold being notably more hardy than people.

Drink no water and your system does poorly, drink the right amount (supplemented with ale) and you'll thrive, take way way too much and you drown.
 
henry d said:
Given that I'm sitting here haphzardly blatting out drivel on the internet vice lying in an oygen tent I'm inclined to believe that you'd have to go quite some to do a job on your health.
Click to expand...
It's specifically oxygen under pressure that's toxic, so when diving or using a ventilator with oxygen (rather than compressed air). If you were to use pure oxygen when diving it would become toxic at a depth only 12 or so feet!!

Ultimately with an ozone generator you're just speeding up what will naturally occur. If it takes a week of airing out at 10 parts per billion (a normal background level) then you could get a week's worth of 'airing out' done in a very short amount of time by closing a small ozone generator in the case. Any damage done to fabrics, rubber, etc. would've occurred naturally anyway in the same amount of time it takes for the odor to improve.
 
One quarter of a teaspoon of clove oil in a litre of water is an effective spray fror killing moulds.
Any stronger reduces its effectiveness.
Smells nice, too ;)
 
Scuromondo said:
The best way I’ve found is to throw it in the rubbish heap and buy another one. Most accordion shops will sell new cases, but many have a supply of used cases in good condition.
Click to expand...
Used cases are not that easy to come by and the size selection is not that awesome. The case with the instrument was probably sized for the instrument. I have had good luck putting them in the car open on a hot day. Ozone works well too, I have a generator that is for bubbling water, and I put the hose in the case.
 
kimric said:
Used cases are not that easy to come by and the size selection is not that easy to come by...
Click to expand...
Maybe I could sell some. I could hide a cordeen in them for shipping.
 
my fist air ozonator was a pair of UVlight generators, the smaller
type that is typicallly installed in large commercial Ice machines and
cold storage rooms (like for produce) and i put a tube on one of them
like yours so i could direct the flow into drains or under and behind
stuff in the basement or behind a stack of speakers in the studio

it has been handy and so helpful all these years, and never caused harm
to anything so far as i could tell

i also got one of the modern plate generators a few years ago which
can purify a room easily.. was damn glad i had it during Covid and loaned
it out to relatives and friends plenty

Oxygen is Natures Purification medium.. O3 is the handiest as each atom is happy
to stop hugging theo ther 2 anytime there is an excuse

think of how reactive hydrogen PerOxide is (very similar, but wet)
and you get the idea
 
Nice to see a lot of high-tech sounding ideas. But I’m happy to say I’ve had the case out in full sunlight every day since I first posted this question and there is a significant difference already. Nothing like lots of fresh air and wind. Gotta love classic “low-tech” LoL
 
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