Hohner Morino VIN neglect abuse, advice needed.

[JerryPH]

Hello everyone. I had stopped playing for decades and the accordion sat in a warm dry closet for, oh, it had to be 20+ years in it's case. Last night I took it out and before doing anything just gently passed air through the bellows, stretching and unsticking them. I then tried touching the registers of the right hand to find them all seized up.

Removing the top cover gave me access to the mechanism, and with great gentleness and care, I loosened them all. Once freed, they worked properly. I then tested all keys of the right hand at all registers for sound and all was good.

Then I started on the left hand. The bass buttons seemed frozen in place and I slowly went from top to bottom pressing them and loosening them. When it came time to test for sound, almost everything went well. There are perhaps 3 buttons in the freebass range (upper 3 rows) that do not produce a sound but do permit air to escape.

Now I have never taken apart an accordion and have no idea about the inner workings of one , but I am pretty handy. Is this something that I can fix by myself and how would be the best way to address this problem?

Thanks for your assistance!

P.S. - I promise that this accordion will never suffer this kind of neglect ever again!

 

[fjsys]

Sounds like a couple of stuck reeds. What I would do is to play it for a while and see if they free up on their own. (Most of the time they will)
If after a while they do not then think about opening the box and plucking them manually to free them up.
More information on this type of thing can be found here at the accordion revival site:
http://www.accordionrevival.com/ACCORDION_REPAIR1.php#Trouble-shooting_silent_reeds

Which is a great site if you are thinking about doing any kind of repair.
HTH
Ben

 

[JerryPH]

I wasn't sure at all, but that was exactly what I was thinking (stuck reeds), but had no idea how to free them up.

Thanks a lot, Ben, I appreciate your help!