Heating Up The Wax
Replacing a few reed plates in a sweet, little accordion this afternoon. This kind of job is always rife with pleasant odors. Accordions generally have a fine aroma of their own, add to that the smell wafting up from my wax hotpot and the nose begins to feast.
Well, after working a bit on this little gem, I’ve found that there is a deeper issue: the reed block is cracked. I noticed that prior repairs had been done using glue to seat the reed plate. This is likely the cause of the cracked block.
Next, I’ll prepare to remove all the reeds by marking the plates with a code to assist in reassembly. Then I’ll pull all the plates, clean the old wax, and asses the situation.
There is damage to the reed chambers which must be repaired.
After taking care of that structural repair I made sure any cracks remaining were sealed with wax; an air tight situation is necessary. I then replaced the reed plates, rewaxed the whole assembly and put the instrument back together for a test. Three keys sounded like the reeds were dirty on the exhale. An easy cleaning fixed that problem.
Back together again, and working like a charm.
