Reed Leather Sizes for Hohner Verdi II

[SamuelPly]

Hello! 

Id like to get reed leathers (or synthetic) for a vintage Hohner Verdi II, but I am unsure on what size and how many I need to order. Its a 34/80 and was produced sometime in the 40s/50s. The process seems simple enough, but I dont want to order too many or not enough. Im assuming (from my limited research) that Ill need 228 leathers (2 per button?), but aside from that Im completely lost.
 

Any other advice on replacing and rewaxing reeds would be very much appreciated, along with any additional upgrades that are worthwhile performing to bring an old accordion back into a better performing life. Im very new to accordions but in doing my research I feel capable of the labor side of repairs. 

thanks in advance,

 

[AndyM]

Hi Samuel, best thing to do is to open up the accordion and have a look at the state of the reed valves - on the treble and bass sides. Having 34 treble keys means you have 68 reeds in each reed block, and being a Verdi II I would assume there are two treble reed blocks, so a total of 136 treble reeds. However, the smallest, high pitched reeds may not have reed valves at all! I recently found this with my Virtuola III and only needed to replace the lower pitched, larger valves. They tend to curl more than the smaller valves.
On the bass side, it depends how many reed blocks there are - I would simply have a look and see which valves need replacing - again the larger bass reed valves are more prone to curling.
Having a look also means you can measure the valves that are there, and order the correct size replacements.
I also found with my Virtuola III all the pallet valves needed replacing - made a big improvement to air tightness.

Happy repairing.

 

[Mr Mark]

Yes, you are best off to open the accordion and manually count them yourself.

I did rebuild a Verdi II myself a couple years ago and it turned out great.  One issue I ran into was the fact one of the bass blocks was glued to the soundboard which made it a little more tricky when waxing...although it doesn't sound like you are going to be doing this.  I also ended up replacing the felts and some bellows tape.  AND I retuned the thing as it was pretty terrible.

At the time I sourced my parts from Wilson music in Canada (Hohner dealer), and he advised sending an assorted bag of treble vales (25 each of 12 different sizes) as well as 24 Bass valves.  Looking in my email I believe this is what was ordered (from the Hohner catalogue).  I had to rewax everything as it was old and brittle.  These order numbers may also no longer exist, so YMMV.


Z1106 - (TA15005 Bass Valves) -24
ZRV-A - (Valve Assortment) - 1 
ZRW - (Reed Wax) - 1
ZVG - (Reed Valve Adhesive) - 1
Neo-Felt - (Valve Padding 6” x 12” x 1/8” thick) - 1
Z1BC - (TA11007 #1 Bellows Corner Small) - 1
Z3000BT (Black Paper Bellows Tape 2.2 cm TA11001) - 16m
 


Somewhere along the way I also compiled this list - being what was already inside these are my measurements.

6mm x (24-35mm long) (x124 pcs)
6.5mm x 38mm (x32 pcs)
7.5mm x 52mm (x48 pcs)

I do recall there being an issue with quantity being wrong somewhere, but don't recall if it was with this accordion or another I rebuilt, so again, best to check yourself.  As a rule of thumb I measured my valves to cover the entire area plus about 1mm overlap at the top.

Here is some information from my emails about pallets if you go down that road.  Of note I had to add a shim to the entire bass pallet mechanism as the new felt was a little thicker than original.

If you do a search on here you might find some really long winded posts I made on this particular topic.

Keep in mind I am an amateur  . 

Good luck!