How often can you remove the bellow pins?

[pitzelberger]

Sine I am doing more and more repair jobs on my accordions, I found myself constantly removing / reinserting their bellow pins. I can clearly feels that they get more loose the more often I do it. E.g. in the beginning I needed a little hammer to reinsert them, now I can just press them in with my thumb. So I was wondering whether I might reach a point where they will become too loose? I guess it wouldn't be such a big problem, since I probably could just use some slightly thicker ones. But nevertheless would be good to know whether this is something likely to happen when I remove them too often?

 

[Dingo40]

Well, this is something that's occurred to me as well. Not only the pins loosening but also the bellows gasket.
Each removal/replacement must surely have an effect on the snugness of the fit?
Nowadays, I avoid opening the bellows. I leave that to the technician!

 

[Scuromondo]

I have not noticed this to be a significant problem. Are you careful to always put the same pin back in the same hole from which it was removed?

 

[JIM D.]

Not a problem. You can restore the pin fit back to original.
At this point your removing / reinserting the bellows have caused the wood around the pin holes to compress
causing the now loose fit. The original fit can be restored by this method.
(1st) remove all the pins and with an eyedropper apply water into all the pinholes on the outside body & the
bellows frames.
(2nd) let the accordion set for at least 15 min. and repeat the procedure again waiting another 15 to 20 min..
(3rd) Reinstall the pins and at this point you will find the bellows pin fitting will be back to the original.

You will find you can repeat this process when the situation reoccurs.

 

[debra]

Not a problem. You can restore the pin fit back to original.
At this point your removing / reinserting the bellows have caused the wood around the pin holes to compress
causing the now loose fit. The original fit can be restored by this method.
(1st) remove all the pins and with an eyedropper apply water into all the pinholes on the outside body & the
bellows frames.
(2nd) let the accordion set for at least 15 min. and repeat the procedure again waiting another 15 to 20 min..
(3rd) Reinstall the pins and at this point you will find the bellows pin fitting will be back to the original.

You will find you can repeat this process when the situation reoccurs.

Very solid advice. In addition to this, always keep the pins in the same order. There are tiny manufacturing tolerances, so you should always put each pin back into the hole it was removed from. If you keep swapping them around in random order you end up compressing the wood and thus enlarging the holes each time.

 

[JerryPH]

Not a problem. You can restore the pin fit back to original.
At this point your removing / reinserting the bellows have caused the wood around the pin holes to compress
causing the now loose fit. The original fit can be restored by this method.
(1st) remove all the pins and with an eyedropper apply water into all the pinholes on the outside body & the
bellows frames.
(2nd) let the accordion set for at least 15 min. and repeat the procedure again waiting another 15 to 20 min..
(3rd) Reinstall the pins and at this point you will find the bellows pin fitting will be back to the original.

You will find you can repeat this process when the situation reoccurs.

THAT is going in to my little tidbit of gold toolbox!

 

[AccordionUprising]

Not a problem. You can restore the pin fit back to original.
At this point your removing / reinserting the bellows have caused the wood around the pin holes to compress
causing the now loose fit. The original fit can be restored by this method.
(1st) remove all the pins and with an eyedropper apply water into all the pinholes on the outside body & the
bellows frames.
(2nd) let the accordion set for at least 15 min. and repeat the procedure again waiting another 15 to 20 min..
(3rd) Reinstall the pins and at this point you will find the bellows pin fitting will be back to the original.

You will find you can repeat this process when the situation reoccurs.

Bet this would work for the often loose register-knobs on top of Hohner 114s

 

[pitzelberger]

Thanks for all the helpful answers! Good to hear that removing them often will not cause some unrecoverable damage.

For keeping them in order, I have already built some little storage devices, as I found it advised elsewhere.

I certainly will try the eyedropper advice!