CBA Newbie

[tcabot]

Hi All,

I decided to take up CBA a few weeks ago, and got myself a prehistoric Weltmeister (surprisingly, still in playable condition) to start learning. So far so good, - I've been playing every day and absolutely loving it.
I am learning B-griff and the intention is to eventually play a very wide repertoire - Celtic, Cornish, Musettes, Eastern European, Scandinavian - you name it.

I was going to take apart and service the Welt myself, but saw a very nice Belgian box in an antiques shop - needs a full re-build, but seems to be a decent quality instrument and should eventually make a good upgrade. Also, I get to play with assembling & disassembling the new toy before I get to use it, and I get to work on it - perfect.

The 5-row box seems to have started its life as a B-griff (judging by the linkages between 1-4 and 2-5 rows), but later had rows 1-3 converted into C.
As I need to re-build it, I'll switch it back into B, but here's the catch: it looks like when it was converted, the range was shifted down by 3 semitones.
So it started its life as G2-D7, but was changed to E2-B6 (I hope I got my octaves right!).

Does it make sense to re-build it back into G2-D7, so I get 4 octaves C-to-C, or am I better off with the current extra E-F basses, but not having the very high C?
To me it seems that basses will be more useful than the ultrasonic C7, but I don't know how often (if ever) the high C is used in accordion music.

Thank you.

 

[Siegmund]

Welcome aboard... and I know that prehistoric Weltmeister route well!

I would also find the bass notes more useful than the ultrasonics. The specific note name is unlikely to matter in most cases unless there's a particular instrument whose music you want to be able to play unedited (and if that's the case you may be frustrated no matter what: E2 gets you, well, the lowest note on a tenor trombone, but still shy of bass clarinet (D), cello (C), or bassoon (Bb.). I can't think offhand of anything bottoming out between E and G.

You are fortunate to have 4½+ octaves available on the new instrument in any case. It's a real search to find more than 4 octaves sometimes.

 

[tcabot]

Thank you.
I see that the standard B-system bayan keyboard goes down to C#, however, C-systems seem to start at E, so I guess I can't win - I'm bound to run out of notes eventually. Might as well drop the ultrasound.

I think I was quite lucky to find a full-sized 5-row b-system box in the UK. It appears to have been sold (made?) by Mr Fortune of Namur, Belgium. I googled the address, and there's no sign of an accordion shop that must have been there at some point in the past. Couldn't find any further information online. Judging by the plain white plastic buttons, it must have been a budget model, but the shape of the reed rivets on the bass side suggests that two of the bass blocks were fitted by hand.
In any case, a good candidate to learn about accordion repair & maintenance. I took the rhs apart for cleaning yesterday - just need to figure out how to put it back together now.

 

[tcabot]

Right folks. I would really appreciate some help.

I've stripped, cleaned and re-padded the pallets on the left side, so now it's just the small job of putting it all back together.

What order would you recommend for assembly? I currently have the pallets off the rods. Looking at the rods, I think it will be easy enough to install the pallets after installing the rods for rows 2 & 3, but the bottom row is a problem. Do I install the bottom row rods (with the pallets) first, before I start attaching all the keys?

Any tips are welcome!