Accordion Valves - Straightening the Originals.

[@YouKnowTheyExist]

This is a useful channel to give folks a look and some ideas. Big thanks to Peter as I submit some additional thoughts. I have a dozen or so accordions, they all need a little or a lot of work. I've had them apart and, as a mechanical engineer, I'm appalled that there are fortressed reeds and valves of great difficulty to work with. A tech warned me that to remove the wax to flip the reed frame over, the tuning can change when you set new wax. So I gave it a lot of thought. I conclude that the heat can alter the reed rivet slightly, so use minimal heat. Tuning should then NOT change unless you touch glue or wax onto the reeds. So, remove all the wax using an awl or dental pic and later, give great care to use the MINIMUM of glue and the nominal amount of heated wax. The other method of tacks and felt in place of wax is workable but tricky business as well. The notion of always getting the best air-seal is part of the ORIGINAL failure mode that plagues old accordions, I do believe. As we see, the reeds work even when the leathers are goofy. Not a good air seal, we can see. So, the notion of flipping the leather over may have GREAT merit. Some would say, "well, the skin side doesn't seal as well as the suede side..." and so this rule gave the world a few million accordions that would badly curl their leathers after a few years (depending on humidity cycles). Did anyone dare to break the rule, and incur the SLIGHT amount of leakage due to the dimply skin side valving to the reed frame? How much leakage is it after the vibration sets the surface to match? Practically a perfect seal, I bet. Does the leather still take an arch? Yes. But not as much. The skin is shrinking over time, and its tensile/compression qualities give it a permanent springiness which is essential and useful to the task, if only it holds MOST of its original flatness. Can you run the glue halfway along the edges of the reed cavity? Yes, more or less (good guess which choice works best). Can the leather still get slapped by its own reed? Maybe. But this was always true if the frames are not thick enough to give flap-room to the reed. Can the leather still suck over sideways and interfere with the opposite reed passage? No, Not as easily as before! This is good. This means you don't have to taper-trim the leathers so skinny that they loose strength. Many accordions get closed up and the problem of NEW leathers bending sideways to rattle in the other reed channel is NOT understood for what it is - you hear it and you shrug your shoulders... "what else can go wrong now?" I am betting then, that the BEST approach for home workshop repairs IS to use leathers, usually without the booster springs, turn the skin side to the frame, and carefully apply the glue halfway along the edge of the frame without any excess to touch the reed. The required portal for air flow is truly only half the length OR LESS of the channel. The tensile quality of the leather is then acting like the booster spring. Maybe for ten decades (we can hope !). If it doesn't have merit, who has already found out? Why does it fail then, if it does? Because the amount of failure in my original accordions is not a happy reality, it is MASSIVELY unhappy, and I want a very sensible, economical solution available. I am resigned to remove all the reed frames and remove all the leathers, and install either new or old leathers flipped over, with glue halfway on the channels. Maybe someone has the shop space set-up, ready to test this out out this week and can give a report. Thanks.

[@DrakeN-ow1im]

Thank you for sharing your expertise and knowledge, Peter. I very much appreciate you giving up your time and effort.

[@markandrew8206]

Thanks! I love your "bench bellows" for testing the individual reeds. Something you made?

[@captaccordion]

Yes, it's absolutely essential in my view and indeed I made it. There's a video on my channel showing it in more detail.

[@ugur.nurcan]

thank you Peter for sharing you amazing skills and thanks for your time. really appreciated

[@Yugoslavianpage]

Excellent videos. Got a good question. My farfisa scandalli Iv was dropped and when i press the piano keys most of them get stuck and some feel sticky. Any videos of a way to repair it?

[@Twind613]

Thanks for posting this. What kind of glue do you like to use for the valves?

[@captaccordion]

Plain old contact adhesive.

[@davidsymons805]

This could work in the short term, but once the springiness is gone from the leathers they will soon start to fail again. If I am working on a budget and reusing leathers, I will add a plastic ventile to the back of the leather as a booster. Of course, this will slightly effect the tuning, but if the leathers are this bad the accordion will need a tuning anyway.

[@captaccordion]

Hi David. As you say, once the springiness is gone, a leather valve is useless unless you reinforce it with plastic. That's why I say that this only works if the valves were of good quality to begin with. I find, given good quality, that they will most of the time take one straightening and retain their springiness. Trying for a second straightening some years later is unlikely to work, and even given good quality, there will be the occasional valve which won't take it one time and will need replacing. But, as a cost effective means of breathing new life into an old accordion, I find that it is often the best approach for some customers. I will always go through the tuning as well. Even when the reeds look clean and their tuning unchanged from new, the original tuning on mid range Italian accordions was never particularly perfect.