Morino VI M impressions after two weeks

[henry d]

First, it really is capable of a very nice full tone. The bassoon and middle cassotto reeds along with the other two middle reeds and a piccolo come together nicely, the musette is very ou la la ( triple, or triple with bassoon) and the middle alone and bassoon and middle are both very usable. The bass reeds are apparently machine as opposed to hand but have excellent response none the less.

The thing is large- but (for me) quite manageable. The weight (33 pounds/ 15 kilos with straps) is at the upper limit of my tolerance when standing for more than thirty minutes or so, but is (as you'd expect) no issue when seated.

The "curtain rod" shoulder strap brackets - to my surprise- are quite comfortable.

The keyboard feel is excellent- good response and relatively short travel on the keys. The 45 keys are easy to reach (45, but slightly narrower without the cramped feel (to me) of the really compact keyboards (a piano player for decades). The array of thumb slides for register changes ( two on the front keyboard edge, two on the back for the bass) are not really useful to me, and a bit difficult to get used to as they constantly hit my thumbs. I suppose time will let me get used to them both in terms of the annoyance in feel and in making use of the quick switch they offer. (basoon middle, bassoon middle piccolo- should be bassoon piccolo... see below)

The three row c griff chromatic option for the bass works well but I really have to push my wrist well up under the bass strap to get at it with any facility.

My particular Morino had the plastic linkage at the end of the bassoon slide in the foundation plate for the shift arm broken off through plastic fatigue- probably aggravated by the hammering effect of the operation of the front edge thumb slides linkage over 60 years. Originally the bassoon slide was permanently on as a result of the broken slide, but after a lot of tinkering and a great deal of very bad language I successfully switched the cassotto middle reed slides with the bassoon slides. This means the middle reeds in the cassotto are always on, but the bassoon is switchable. All well but for low/high and the bassoon alone now comes out as low/middle- quite livable for me.

 

[debra]

Thanks for the experience report. A friend of mine also bought a (well-used) Morino VI M. He is a bit of a collector and also has a Morino VI N and a Morino VI S with chin switches and several other accordions.
A problem he has experienced is felt pallets falling off. (So he always carries a tube of glue for a quick fix on the go, and until now he hasn't had a problem of bass pallets falling off, only treble, so they are reachable.)
No issues with the register sliders until now, but it's good to know that there is a potential problem lurking because of plastic sliders. I guess there is a reason why accordions normally have aluminium sliders. (My Morino Artiste X S of much later vintage also still has plastic sliders...)
Best of luck with your Morino! Take good care of it. They don't make them like this any more...

 

[henry d]

Thanks- and may your slides slip lightly and long...

Obsessed- one of many unfortunate quirks of my personality- with the slide failure, I've been looking for explanations. The aging plastic certainly contributed, but since the others are fine. The slide where it has the raised slotted piece for the shift arm had turned whitish about the break- common when plastic is repeatedly stressed beyond its design limits. The matching slide for the matching reed bank also has the whitish discoloration at the same point but had not yet failed Having pondered away, my ponderous conclusion is that the shift mechanism was trying to push the slide past where it was physically stopped by the reed block. This , because the shift arms ride pretty high in the slot and thus exerts a force to bend the raised slotted piece back and forth. This differs from most metal slides where the tip of the arm is inserted into a cutout (sometimes with with a brass reinforcement) in the slide and the force against a stopped slide is directly in line with the slide.

The force exerted by the front edge thumb slider is substantially greater that that offered by the normal shifters. The end result is that the other eight slides are fine, but these two in the impact zone of the arms moved by said heavy metal thumb slider were compromised.

Is this of any real help to the greater community? Sadly, no. It's sort of model specific. My apologies for waxing on and on, but it really bugged me. If you happen to own a Morino VI with a similar set up you might check the slide ends in the cassotto and if there's an incipient issue glue in a stiff felt or cork bumper to stop the slide's movement at the raised slotted portion thereby setting the slide positions just so and removing the stress from the plastic slide end.

The "carefully crafted" mouse drawn representation of the Morino slide above and a "normal" slide (in the block or in the foundation plate) below sort of illustrates the issue. The plastic slide, about the same thickness as a metal slide has the pressure from the arm well up above the plane of the slide- creating a "bending" force on the end of the slide when the arm pushes or pulls it. The stodgy old metal design has the force from the arm applied pretty much directly in line with the slide's travel; all push or pull without the flexing. The Morino also has the slide pretty far out of the foundation plate in the out position aggravating any flexing with a greater length of unsupported plastic
slide.

 

[debra]

Thanks for the very illustrative drawing. You are right about the top design creating bending force that will eventually cause material fatigue and break. My Morino Artiste XS (a much later design) has plastic register sliders that follow the bottom design. I guess someone learned from earlier failures...