DIY accordion keyboard repair

Zenano "07 Dec 2011, 20:12

Michael | 8 Jun 2011, 17:51 wrote: I have the following problems with the accordion. Complete accordion, Soviet - "Rhapsody". The first problem is that one key sinks, it sounds by itself without pressing. At first it was lifted up, but then I opened the front panel and slightly bent its lever. The valve is completely closed, but the sound still goes to the compression and opening of the fur. I don’t know how to fix it.

The second problem is that the accordion sounds very muffled and quiet, at least the bass. The right keyboard is more or less. Can you tell me if there is any way to fix this so that the bass sounds normal, or is the case completely hopeless?

Michael | June 9, 2011, 22:22 wrote: Thanks for the advice on the merits, I solved the problem with the valves! Indeed, there one lower valve did not close at all, the lever on which the parolon was held was bent. I bent it back and the problem was solved.

But I haven't reached the bass yet. When I was shooting the right side, I looked a little at the bays. Voices like everything is in place, likes too. But they sound very dull, sluggish and quiet. I don’t know, of course, it could really be and it should be, but if we compare it with my second accordion, Veltmeister, they are generally zero. The bass plays loudly and clearly on the veltmeister, which is why he is probably the veltmeister. =)

I heard about the term “Play the accordion”. I don’t know what this actually means, but I believe that if you play an instrument for a long time that has been idle for a long time, then gradually the voices will start to sound better and louder. Is this so, or am I wrong about something? Maybe you should just blow out the bass in some way?

Happy New Year, comrades accordionists. On New Year's enthusiasm, I found my old button accordion, on which I was still learning to play. I didn’t use it. the buttons on the left hand fell, basically these were and are chords. The bass seems to be working fine. It looks like this (I corrected them and played a little)

They do not come back completely, some make sounds in this position, and this is very bad.
The mechanics as a whole looks like this (all these are photographs of the patient).

The first thing that seemed strange to me was the pencil at the bottom of the case (you can clearly see it in the photo). It is in free flight i.e. not fixed in any way. I don't know why it is needed either. The next two photos show the state of the mechanics before pressing the buttons (before that I straightened everything with my fingers (I already forgot what the part is called, the pusher, in my opinion))

Now the state after I pressed and released several buttons

I also noticed that in general the whole mechanics are very staggering. Captured on video.

Unfortunately, not Full HD, but I think it will be visible. Perhaps a pencil was used to eliminate the wobbling.
But most of all, the location of the buttons is worried. It seems to me that the whole problem is in the spring, but how to replace it and is it to blame? The process of clicking is also included in the video version.
Video 2
I would be grateful for any help.

Vladislav wrote: So it's more about the spring.

No. Better to turn to the master. But if you have a great desire, you can do it yourself. It is impossible to explain in words. The main thing is that when you press the button, there should be no resistance in the entire chain of transmitting mechanics up to the raising of the valve. All resistance must be eliminated. Everything is determined individually. What should be firmly fixed, what is crooked is folded, what should be flattened. And the medical principle is “Do no harm”.

In order to exchange experience, as well as help a newbie, we will create a topic where gurus will share the tricks of repairing tools at home, beginners - to draw on knowledge, and home-made ones - to brag about new master tools

ELIMINATING KNOCK AND IMPROVING BAYAN'S COMPRESSION

So, I want to share a kind of educational program on basic maintenance of your favorite instrument.

Even the highest quality "Scandalli" or "Roland" needs elementary care, sooner or later the stuffing and cushioning materials roll down, trample down and dry out, thus the tool loses its former properties, ceases to hold air, unnecessary noises appear in the form of knocking valves or howling of planks. You can fix many of these and other problems yourself. For example - knocking and decompression. Knocking occurs when the valve plate hits the deck of the instrument. In most cases, the cushioning properties of the valve husky are very limited; it still transfers the valve shock to the curtain quite well. Sometimes manufacturers take care of this and stick the seal not on the valve itself, but on foam rubber, felt or cloth, which is then attached to the valve flap. But over time, this gasket dries up, gets confused and corrodes, from here there are annoying knocks, which are sometimes so loud that they are heard during the game, they often do not even give the opportunity to conduct a glissando. There is a need to eliminate them.

In order to carry out this procedure, you do not need to have a large mat-tech base and special skills. All you need is pliers, wire cutters, scissors, a straight razor (or a sharp scalpel / stationery knife), double-sided foam tape, and three hours of free time.

Having removed the valve grids from the bayan deck, we see the entire breech mechanism of the melody: two rows of valves at the top of the neck and one at the bottom. Valves and their levers are of various designs, you can read about this in Fadeev's wonderful book "Repair of harmonics, button accordions and accordions".

After removing excess dust that may have accumulated on the deck, carefully, one by one, remove the valves from the bipod. It is most convenient to do this if the accordion is equipped with a wooden keyboard with wire bipods, where the valves are mounted on a semi-rigid nipple mount (photo). After completing this procedure, you can set the tool aside and deal directly with the valves.

First of all, you need to carefully separate the husky from the valve plate. If the instrument is old, the laika will disappear by itself, on button accordions made in the 70s - 80s. The husky was glued to thin foam rubber, which ensured the silent operation of the melody mechanism, but, unfortunately, after 30 - 40 years, this material tends to decompose, flow and crumble. Sometimes it is easier to peel off the BF glued with glue, rather than what is “held together” as a result of foam rubber corrosion. Otherwise, if the husky flatly refuses to be removed, but you need to save it, you should use caution or a scalpel, while carefully pulling back the separated edge of the seal.

After the husky is removed, it is required to clean the surfaces from glue, traces of foam rubber, felt, etc. If the valves are relatively clean, they can be wiped with acetone, thereby washing off the glue and degreasing the surface. This operation can be carried out for both metal and wood, plastic and Teflon valves. If foam, felt or other shock-absorbing / sealing material remains on the valve and it is not going to be washed off with acetone, it can be washed in warm (or better - hot) water with the addition of any detergent. Later, when it gets wet (foam rubber), it can be removed with a brush or knife. If the valve is wooden, it should never be washed, otherwise it will lead! Then you should carefully scrape off the remnants of the matter with a knife or on an emery bar.

Well, I made my first accordion ... I must say right away that when it came time to write this article, I found with great annoyance that most of the photos taken in the process had been lost. Therefore, you will have to be content with only a part of them and what happened in the end ...

It took me almost 7 months for it. Even despite the fact that I did not make the voice strips myself, but used ready-made ones. Although, a reservation is needed here: not all this time I was engaged only in this accordion, there were significant breaks for the repair of other instruments (on request) and if it was possible to concentrate only on it, then it would be possible to do it in three months.

The idea of ​​making an accordion with my own hands had been visiting me for quite a long time, but it didn't linger in my head for a long time, since this work seemed incredibly difficult, given the absence of a full-fledged workshop and the presence of only fragmentary knowledge about the process itself.

But the pile of lumpy pieces that had accumulated thanks to kind people pushed me to get down to business. And my hands were already itching unbearably to try.

I started work at the very beginning of October 2011. By that time, the concept of the future instrument had already been quite clearly formed in my head: it was supposed to be a small accordion, three-voiced (two voices in one octave, one an octave higher) and, at the same time, almost a full-fledged lame. Almost - because, in order to reduce the final size, I decided to remove the unused bottom-most keys of the right keyboard.

Thus, as a result, the dimensions of the accordion body along the perimeter were 270x160mm. Keys-23 on the right, 25 on the left. The bass is a four-part one, which is more typical for cheap factory instruments. Key in F major. Further - in order, what was done and how.

At the corners of the body there are metal corners made of a duralumin left lattice of Belarus, the same one that was a donor when my Chaika was converted to wooden resonators a year and a half ago.

The outer ends of the walls of the case are also edged with duralumin strips.

Both decks - left and right - are made of plywood. The right-hand grates were cut with a jigsaw. The drawing is simple, invented in the process.

The body was covered with mahogany stain and decided not to decorate with anything. Maybe only for now, or maybe completely.

I made the neck of the right keyboard from beech planks from packaging boxes found in the summer on vacation, in the village with my grandfather, when I did not yet know that I would start this business in the fall (there was only the thought of trying to make the neck in my own way).

The neck is glued. All grooves for wooden keys are formed by gluing partitions to the base plate. This method, in my opinion, has at least two advantages over the traditional one, when the grooves are cut (or how are they made there?) In a solid bar: firstly, the wood fibers are located along the partitions, and not across, which additionally gives them strength; secondly, the hole for the axle is drilled according to the markings even before the partitions are glued, which is just convenient.

The keys themselves are made of the same strips as the body. The buttons from the accordion "Rubin" are used as buttons on the keyboard.

The valve bodies are taken from the old Shuya accordion, with pre-glued gaskets and a new husky.

The mechanics itself is not quite traditional for an accordion: a series of valves is located behind the neck and is driven by a mechanism (or rather, part of it from the same "Ruby") (see photo).

This design allows more rational use of free space in the case and is used (albeit in a slightly different form) in Tula custom accordions.

What was to be done? ... It was decided to do it from scratch myself. Over the next few days, I spent a lot of paper tracing the most rational wire mechanics schemes. However, in the end I gave up on it: the design came out cumbersome, non-separable, and I also didn't really want to pierce the deck with dozens of brackets for attaching all the levers.

Roller mechanics (as on factory accordions), lighter, maintainable and low-noise, at first seemed impracticable at home due to the need (as it seemed to me) of the presence of welding equipment for welding the racks to the rollers.

But I found a solution: a hole slightly smaller than the diameter of the rack was drilled in the roller to attach the racks, after which the tip of the rack, sharpened on a light cone, was screwed tightly into the hole and riveted from the back side. It turned out, in my opinion, quite reliably. But time will tell.

The pushers were made in the same way. The buttons themselves are ready-made. In total, it took a month of work to make the left-hand mechanics. The valves are also taken from a donor, aluminum.

The furs are made by me from ... Whatman paper. This is probably not very good in terms of durability, but for the first experience, I think it is acceptable. Only when making them, I made a small oversight due to short-sightedness - I made only thirteen borin. And for such a small volume of the case, it was necessary to make about seventeen of them ... Now I myself cannot answer the question "Why?" ... I knew ... But, looking ahead, I will say that in the end the problem was not so critical. Simply, the direction of movement of the bellows has to be changed a little more often.

As for the voice part, at first I had grandiose plans to make, at least, the front strips on the right integral, self-made, because I already had such an experience. But, later, I refused them, deciding that I would save my strength and time for the next time.

As a result, the vocal strips for the right part were used from the Krasny Partizan accordion (the resonators were given to me for this (thanks to Igor Shelepov, he has supplied me not for the first time!)).

These slats were brass, albeit lumpy, which surprised me a lot, expecting to see the traditional duralumin. At that moment, it was finally decided to install them. I was not even confused by the not very high quality of their manufacture, namely, the considerable gaps between the voice and the edges of the opening. The main thing - it was brass!

The strips were cleaned of corrosion and old glue, the collars were re-glued.

Several planks had to be rebuilt from similar in tone, as they were not enough for the desired tonality. One broken voice is reworked and riveted. The resonators on the right side are made entirely from scratch by our own hands, with input chambers matched to the tonality. I did them for 10 days, while on vacation (in October). Due to the small size of the body, the piccola had to be placed standing, each row on a separate resonator. Although, it would be nice to "put" them on the deck for a more interesting sound.

The bass resonator is made from the resonator of the aforementioned accordion by removing all unnecessary things (just sawing off a part of it and installing a set of strips of the desired key). Bass-seven (without F-sharp). Bass strips (they were duralumin) were "knocked down" to reduce the gaps and, as a result, improve the response.

The chord resonator is also built from scratch.

We listen to the sound (on the first video-comparison with the Chaika, on the second - "Old Maple", the third video - "Lady"). I will say right away that the third video ("Lady"), recorded closest to the camera, most accurately conveys the sound. And this ... It seems that during the time spent on this accordion, I, a little, forgot how to play ...: