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Hello Paul, old post but I have a question,
Reed plates in an accordina are fixed using "accordion wax" which is a mix of beeswax, resin and a drop of linseed oil. It gets older as it ages. Best to replace with new accordion wax. What happened that you need to replace a reed? Unless you play the accordina for a few hours every day I would expect it to last for decades, possibly a lifetime.
I play the accordina about two hours most days. I have had my accordina for seven years. I have never had to replace a reed. I do wonder about tuning, though. What is the best way to check the tuning? And about how often do you think an accordina should be tuned (assuming it is played about 2 hours per day).
How often an accordina (or also an accordion) needs to be tuned depends on how critical a listener you are. I tuned mine after maybe 6 years or so, and it could use some tuning again now, after almost as many years. The problem is that to tune a reed safely you need to remove the reed plate (to be able to access the reed from the other side, not trying to scratch it from the outside and risk deforming it). And then you put it back, check again, remove again, put back, ... so it's a lot of work, messing with wax all the time and giving the reed and plate time to cool down. I always play the accordina together with others (with accordions) and when you play it together with well-tuned accordions you can hear when the accordina is out of tune. If you listen carefully to the video here, you may detect that the F#4 is out of tune. I did retune it afterwards but did not record the accordina part again... (it's not that extremely bad).
)
) and the funny part is that I bought a Super Scandalli today in mint condition and guess what? The reeds are glued (or something as hard of glue) on the blocks...
Very strange that it would be something without wax. In accordions I have never seen anything other than "accordion wax" used (wax + resin + a bit of linseed oil). It really becomes quite hard once it has settled (that is after a few weeks, but it hardens quite a bit after just hours already). Different manufacturers may use a different wax/resin ratio, but they all have over half of beeswax. My accordina (by Marcel Dreux) definitely uses the same accordion wax. The only time I have seen anything else used in real life was in a ruined Russian bayan that had the large reed plates glued in place. (A bayan is not supposed to have wax or glue or anything else as the reed plates are clamped/hooked on top of leather.) And on Facebook there is a bozo who wants to use bathroom silicone for many accordion purposes where it is not just bad but also harmful...
| Tong 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noot | Freq | Huid | Doel | Fout |
| (Hz) | (Cent) | (Cent) | (Cent) | |
| Re3# | 157,21 | 17,6 | - | - |
| Mi3 | 166,64 | 18,5 | - | - |
| Fa3 | 177,07 | 23,5 | - | - |
| Fa3# | 187,31 | 20,8 | - | - |
| Sol3 | 198,36 | 20,1 | - | - |
| Sol3# | 210,16 | 20,1 | - | - |
| La3 | 221,30 | 9,9 | - | - |
| La3# | 235,46 | 17,0 | - | - |
| Si3 | 249,33 | 16,1 | - | - |
| Do4 | 256,70 | -31,4 | - | - |
| Do4# | 277,56 | 2,2 | - | - |
| Re4 | 295,96 | 13,0 | - | - |
| Re4# | 310,55 | -3,1 | - | - |
| Mi4 | 332,46 | 14,3 | - | - |
| Fa4 | 350,09 | 4,1 | - | - |
| Fa4# | 367,35 | -11,9 | - | - |
| Sol4 | 387,80 | -17,9 | - | - |
| Sol4# | 418,72 | 13,7 | - | - |
| La4 | 436,45 | -13,4 | - | - |
| La4# | 470,13 | 14,2 | - | - |
| Si4 | 494,67 | 2,7 | - | - |
| Do5 | 513,25 | -31,8 | - | - |
| Re5 | 590,85 | 10,0 | - | - |
| Re5# | 620,40 | -5,0 | - | - |
| Mi5 | 664,25 | 12,6 | - | - |
| Fa5 | 704,41 | 14,2 | - | - |
| Fa5# | 730,77 | -20,8 | - | - |
| Sol5 | 762,14 | -46,4 | - | - |
| Sol5# | 840,54 | 19,9 | - | - |
| La5 | 882,72 | 5,1 | - | - |
| La5# | 935,58 | 5,8 | - | - |
| Si5 | 992,79 | 8,5 | - | - |
| Do6 | 1017,47 | -46,2 | - | - |
| Do6# | 1107,49 | -1,9 | - | - |
| Mi6 | 1326,58 | 10,2 | - | - |
| Fa6 | 1408,25 | 13,5 | - | - |
| Fa6# | 1462,03 | -20,2 | - | - |
| Sol6 | 1574,84 | 7,3 | - | - |
| Sol6# | 1674,02 | 12,8 | - | - |
| La6 | 1752,02 | -7,6 | - | - |
That looks like shellack. The reeds are really held in place with screws and shellack was applied to seal the seams. It does not have the strength to keep the reeds in place when air pressure (from playing) is applied. More modern accordinas do not use screws and rely on accordion wax to hold the reeds in place.Hello the accordina is a A. Borel with metal casing, donno when they made this..., might be brittle old wax but it seels very hard...
Here is the pic:
In this accordion the reed plates are really held in place with accordion wax, but a clear varnish was applied to reduce the hardening of the wax over time. The bit of linseed oil in accordion wax tends to evaporate over time, and the wax slowly hardens and loses its grip. The varnish extends the lifetime of the wax.And here is the pic of the Super Scandalli... might be wax but very hard (age) and if wax I think they were very stingy ;-)
Yep, tuning is certainly needed. First of course cleaning the reeds but be gentle. These appear to be brass reeds, unlike the stainless steel reeds used in later models (including later Borel accordinas). The difficulty in tuning is that you cannot safely pull out a reed to tune it up and you cannot support it "from below" to tune it down... So it becomes a laborious process of taking out the reed plate, filing or scratching a bit, then putting it back, measuring, taking it out again, filing or scratching again... etc. Also, some reeds may respond better when "upside down" which is why you see a mix of directions. Some of the highest pitched reeds may have such difficulty to start that a bit of an air leak is needed to help them out. It can be tricky to pierce the right size of hole (which I do in the wax) to provide just the right tiny leak so the note starts quickly. (In an accordion the reed for the opposite bellow direction provides that leak in high-pitched reeds that no longer have valves, but an accordina has no opposing reeds.)
