The Shop > Wood & Stuff
The Mouldy Accordion.
S. Heslop:
Went to town and got some tea tree oil, mixed it with methylated spirits in a spray bottle to spray around inside the thing, and also onto cloths and brushes. Got all the visible mould out, i'd imagine there's still some underneath all the machinery.
Then glued some of the things that fell off back on.
That strip on the left didn't glue back on in exactly the right place, and was causing alot of the buttons to stick. So I removed this top rail that holds all the... things in place.
Then removed the sticking ones, one at a time, and filed the hole till they stopped sticking.
Earlier the thought of maybe having to disassemble this part was making me feel very uncomfortable, but I think now that with proper labeling of the parts it wouldn't be so bad getting it back together.
bhowden:
Sounds like it might be a bit late but here in Canada Home Depot (and many others) sell something called Concrobium (http://www.homedepot.ca/product/mold-control-946-ml/949056) that claims to encapsulate mold spores and crush them when it dries. It has very little odor and so far I have not stained anything with it. Seems to work but then once I found any mould I kept it dry so I don't really know.
Brian
nrml:
I too have found this thread probably a bit late. I was going to suggest the boron stuff used for dry rot in timber. It is claimed to be effective for dry rot, wet rot and mould but still is non toxic for humans after application.
S. Heslop:
I wanted to avoid using anything water based since I figured it'd mess with the glues, and the bellows are made from cardboard and would probably fall apart if they got soaking wet.
Went to that leather store (Le Prevo) and the guy there was real helpful. It kinda caught me off guard going in, because I was expecting it to be a one of those quiet places i'd suspect are ran as more of a hobby, but it was a real hub of activity. They seem to get alot of business.
Got some odd ends from the scrap bin to make straps and replace the chest-pad piece. The guy identified the original valve leather as... something like kashka, I forget exactly what, but it was expensive stuff. Ended up getting the top half of a goat instead for £6 since it felt about the same as the old valves.
1 row down 7 to go. I did some testing to see how the new leather worked, and it's seems more 'springy' in that it returns to position, where the old stuff just bends and stays bent.
For the glue i'm using 'burnt shellac', which is just regular mixed shellac set alight so most of the alcohol evaporates away leaving a sticky mess. In this photo it's actually just been 'topped up' with the methylated spirits, so I can cover it and leave it without it going dry.
Cutting the leather into strips. Lately i've found a wide chisel more useful than a utility knife.
New chest pad. At first I cut the edges a bit oversized, thinking i'd be fancy and fold them in on themselves, but the leather was too thick to easily do that. I think with a gouge of some sort I could scoop out the material on the back of the fold but it's alot of effort.
Also had a go at a new wrist strap but it didn't turn out so well. This leather is very hard and rough on the hand, and it's a bit loose too. With any spare goat lather I have I might try stitching that onto the thing with a bit of padding underneath.
S. Heslop:
Got the other side of reeds done, so i'm going to wax them on after they dry overnight.
Decided to make the wax now because i've been curious about it for a while.
Melted the rosin first. It looks delicious. I'm also glad I went with a non-stick pan since the stuff stuck to everything else.
Then put the beeswax in. I weighed it and figured 3 sticks of beeswax and 2 lumps of rosin were about a 60:40 ratio. Also put a bit of linseed oil in, I heard it quoted at 5% but my stupid brain doesn't do volumes too well so I put about half a cap full in.
I lay two 'beads' of wax on a bit of wood, before and after the linseed oil, and both were fairly soft. The old stuff in the accordion was glass hard so I assumed it'd probably be fairly hard. So I gave it a test, sticking this bit of bar end to my push stick.
I didn't expect it to hold on too well, so I started shaking it gently. After a bit I was flailing it around as hard as I could, and the thing surprisingly stayed on. The bar end is alot heavier than the reeds, has more leverage from being taller, and has less of a perimeter attached with the wax, so i'm pretty confident this stuff will probably work fine with the reeds. Might even survive if (when) I drop the accordion.
Anyways, i've still got that lung infection. I went to the doctors a couple days ago and he reckoned it was just viral bronchitis and there's not much you can do about it but let it do its thing for a few weeks. But while melting that rosin it got a little hot and started to smoke just a little bit, but that's really done my lungs in again.
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