Straightening leather valves?

[trek4fr]

Hey, folks, I picked up a nice little Scandalli student model from the late '60s or early '70s. All the wax is good and all the notes sound. A few of the leather valves are not seated against the metal reed blocks. What is the best way to straighten them?

Thanks!

 

[RodionGork]

Hi!

I've found there are several "degrees" of a problem and several possible solutions:

1) in normal case we can detach the leather (e.g. with a thin knife), roll it spirally with fingers and then glue it back

2) in easy case it may be enough to "wipe" it several times with a finger, from the "root" (where it is attached) to "tip", pressing it tightly enough against the reed plank. try this first, probably, as this requires no detaching and gluing. Perhaps you can also find a way like "rolling without detaching".

3) in the more difficult case, after detaching, you put valves into the cup of water to make them really wet, then put them onto the side of the large glass jar or something similar (to provide small bent) and wrap around with some rag (no sticky tape!) - in about 24 hours they will be ready.

valves on the inner side, obviously, require detaching the reed plank itself, so before doing it I usually try to make them straight with a flat screwdriver pushed through the hole of the resonator... but mainly helps in case valve got side bent and is touching the wall of the chamber...

 

[TomBR]

Something that can work without removing valves - it's hard to describe, but a piece of wire or paperclip can be made into a little tool with a U bend in the wire so the two sides are 1mm or less apart. That can be slid over the valve and drawn along so that you kink the valve towards the reed plate and draw that kink to the end of the valve. Imagine curling a strip of paper by drawing it between two fingers - like that!

 

[JerryPH]

A couple of links:

http://talkingreeds.com/reed-valves/

http://accordionrevival.com/ACCORDION_REPAIR_2.php#Renewing_treble_valves

Ive seen the bent paperclip trick, it can be a good preliminary idea to try out before removing the valves, but if they are old and brittle, best to just replace them.

 

[trek4fr]

Thanks all. I think I'll try the bent paperclip first. These valves don't seem old and brittle, just maybe sagging a bit from not being stored in the right position. Thanks again.

 

[Sarah]

My friend straighten leather valves in his accordion using... clothes iron.

 

[JerryPH]

Does he remove them before ironing them? If not, he risks melting the wax around the reeds causing further damage and air leaks.

 

[Sarah]

"Does he remove them before ironing them?"

Yes.

 

[Soulsaver]

Hi Sarah - Given the low cost of replacement valves plus the time take to press the old, and their potential higher failure rate, I'm surprised he thinks it worthwhile?

 

[JerryPH]

That's kind of what I was thinking... the time he takes removing them and replacing them, he could be replacing them with new ones once and be again good for decades.

 

[trek4fr]

...But doesn't replacing the leathers require retuning the reeds?

I'd be comfortable cutting the leathers and gluing them on. But tuning an accordion is way beyond my tools and talents.

 

[kimric]

Straightening the valves is going to be a temporary repair at best. They will curl again in a pretty short period of time. The exception to this is limp (not curled) bass valves. These can be saved by using a stiffener in some cases.

 

[JIM D.]

With a quality made box, in most (90%) of cases the reed tongues will not be out of tune but need cleaning, and a valve replacement - leather or ventile . Now of you will have to remove the reed plate itself and clean, replace the valves and re-wax them in place.
Please refer to and read ---
http://accordionrevival.com/ACCORDION_REPAIR1.php#changing_reed_leathers
http://accordionrevival.com/ACCORDION_REPAIR1.php#voicing_reeds

 

[John M]

From the information I gathered on this forum, my Excelsior 960 is about 40 years old. So I decided to remove the 5 treble reed blocks in the 960 to check the leather valves. To my surprise they were in very good condition. They were soft and still very flexible. I straightened any leathers that had a gap. The worst case valve had a 3/32" gap between the end of the valve and the reed plate. I only needed to remove, straighten, and re glue a total of 9 outside leathers on the five reed blocks. The leathers inside the reed blocks all seemed nice and flat against the reed plates.

To straighten a leather valve, I removed it with a sharp scalpel (described later). I kept the scalpel hard against the reed plate as I cut through the old glue. It is very easy to cut into the leather if this is not done. With the leather removed, I scraped any remaining glue off the reed plate and also off the leather. I used a vacuum and a can of compressed air to remove any particles from the reed plate and plate cavity. I then reshaped the leather with a "downward" curvature and tested it on the plate for a good fit. Then I glued it to the plate. I found that only a very thin layer of glue is needed. I did not put any glue on the leather, just the plate and only where I could tell where the old glue was.

The glue I used was "Leather Glue PU" from the Furniture Clinic. I ordered it from their New York store where it was back ordered from the UK where it is manufactured. It is very easy to work with. It dries good enough in 15 minutes and remains flexible once set. A bottle is $12.95. I would recommend getting their "Leather Repair Kit" that comes with a bottle of the "Glue PU" Heavy Filler, Scalpel, Palette Knife, Spring Loaded (closed) Tweezers, Canvas Sub Patch, and Sandpaper. It is $19.95 and well worth the extra $7.00. I used the scalpel to remove the leather from the reed plate. The tweezers are high quality and very good for holding small screws, nuts, etc.

John M.

 

[debra]

...
The glue I used was Leather Glue PU from the Furniture Clinic. ...

I normally use a bulk glue from a shoemaker, but I recently discovered that Pattex also makes a shoe or leather glue (in additional to the normal Pattex or Bostik glue that is popular) and it appears to work very well. So I keep a tube of that Pattex shoe glue in my emergency-repair kit.