Mike t.
Active member
Having three accordions, two very nice and my grandpa’s old clunker, I decided to add better lefthand locator bumps on my new Saltarelle accordion and my old clunker. The Saltarelle has an indent for the “C” and a roughed surface on the “A” flat and “E” as normal. The clunker only has the “C” marked. The trouble for me is working in the garden has made my fingers calloused and hard to feel and on rare occasions I need to play the clunker outdoors for a preschool and it’s a 120 bass versus a 96 bass. I need those locater bumps.
The indent locaters work great but I notice they have worn down over the 70+ years on the old clunker while my newer 50 year old Petosa with raised jewel locaters are just as crisp as the day it was made and very easy to feel.
I ordered orange/red Carnelian agate, round cabochons 4mm diameter. The color goes good with the cherry wood color of the Saltarelle. I made a drill jig to keep everything centered, after getting the jewels and taking measurements. (They were .005” different in diameter and .010” in height, very close!) I purchased 7 from a shop on Etsy. They took a month to come from India. They are very inexpensive. The jig only worked on one accordion as the button diameters were different. Easy to change after counter boring the smaller buttons, I just opened up the drill jig for the larger buttons. I made jig from brass with a nice sanded smooth bore so as to leave no marks. The total length of the jig is about 1” and 1/2” diameter. I picked three jewels that were closest to size. I used two drill bits that I sharpened one conventional but with the center web narrowed down next to nothing to give it easier drilling and another with a flat tip to counter bore the hole. I shot for a .030” deep counter bore then increased it to about .040” deep to inset the jewels to feel right. I just twisted the drill bits by hand slowly alternating between the pointy and flat drill to create the counter bore.
The bass buttons were slightly side loaded to keep them from pushing in while drilling, that was the hardest part, push on the drill to hard and the button would depress. It took a couple hours to get the buttons drilled/counter bored and ready to glue in the jewels with super glue.
The other problem is if you accidentally drop the jewels, (at least three/four times!) you have to call in the eagle eyed wife to find the missing ones. Best to have a white sheet over the area of work. I cleaned the jewels with alcohol before glueing them permanently.
For me this came out sweet, perfect for calloused fingers to feel and will never wear down.
This is just my way of tackling this project having a machine shop and my skill set, there are simpler ways of making bass locator markers, just saying!
The indent locaters work great but I notice they have worn down over the 70+ years on the old clunker while my newer 50 year old Petosa with raised jewel locaters are just as crisp as the day it was made and very easy to feel.
I ordered orange/red Carnelian agate, round cabochons 4mm diameter. The color goes good with the cherry wood color of the Saltarelle. I made a drill jig to keep everything centered, after getting the jewels and taking measurements. (They were .005” different in diameter and .010” in height, very close!) I purchased 7 from a shop on Etsy. They took a month to come from India. They are very inexpensive. The jig only worked on one accordion as the button diameters were different. Easy to change after counter boring the smaller buttons, I just opened up the drill jig for the larger buttons. I made jig from brass with a nice sanded smooth bore so as to leave no marks. The total length of the jig is about 1” and 1/2” diameter. I picked three jewels that were closest to size. I used two drill bits that I sharpened one conventional but with the center web narrowed down next to nothing to give it easier drilling and another with a flat tip to counter bore the hole. I shot for a .030” deep counter bore then increased it to about .040” deep to inset the jewels to feel right. I just twisted the drill bits by hand slowly alternating between the pointy and flat drill to create the counter bore.
The bass buttons were slightly side loaded to keep them from pushing in while drilling, that was the hardest part, push on the drill to hard and the button would depress. It took a couple hours to get the buttons drilled/counter bored and ready to glue in the jewels with super glue.
The other problem is if you accidentally drop the jewels, (at least three/four times!) you have to call in the eagle eyed wife to find the missing ones. Best to have a white sheet over the area of work. I cleaned the jewels with alcohol before glueing them permanently.
For me this came out sweet, perfect for calloused fingers to feel and will never wear down.
This is just my way of tackling this project having a machine shop and my skill set, there are simpler ways of making bass locator markers, just saying!
