I needed a part so I started to dismantle an accordion bass mechanism that I had in my accordion graveyard. Most piano accordions have Stradella basses comprising 2 rows of bass notes and 4 rows of chords.
Accordion Bass Mechanisms
Each button in an accordion bass mechanism has a flat shaft with pins that operate levers to sound the appropriate reeds. In the picture above the shaft on the left has 4 pins so I suppose it’s from the 7th chord row and the ones with 3 pins are from the diminished chord row. Looking at the picture the shafts are out of order (4 pins and 3 pins should alternate) so it’s a good thing I never intended to rebuild it! Most accordions use a 3 note 7th chord but this Marinucci must be like a Weltmeister and have a full 7th chord. (I never heard this accordion play because it was given me for spares and it immediately had all it’s reeds taken out!) I do accordion repairs for private customers and The Accordion Shop. If you want help mending an accordion yourself try this great website run by George Bachich.
Why Remove an Accordion Bass Mechanism?
You might have to remove the bass mechanism on an accordion because it’s the only way to work on the pallets below if they are broken or leaking.
After removing the 7th and Dim buttons I found that I could get the Major and Minor chord buttons out in one go. I was just breaking this old Marinucci for parts so I knew I would never have to re-assemble the bass mechanism. If you did need to re-assemble, you would have to carefully keep track of each part.
Removable Accordion Bass Mechanisms
This modern Hohner has a removable bass mechanism – you can get this far very quickly by undoing 6 bolts! The pallets are under a protective aluminium plate. Most Scandalli and Weltmeister accordions also have removable bass mechanisms
This Scandalli Scott Wood Four is old (40’s I think) and amazingly they had already developed a removable Stradella bass mechanism.
The Deeper You Go…
The last 2 rows of buttons are the bass buttons and have the longest shafts. I found them hard to remove without bending some of them. In this case bending parts didn’t matter but it might be tricky if you are intending to re-build.
I needed to dismantle this Vignoni bass mechanism and it took so long that I had to leave it overnight. I had nightmares about a cat walking along my windowsill and muddling the bass shafts. (We don’t have a cat!) Come the morning I managed to re-build it without too much trouble.
Rollers or Pipes
Last of all I removed all the “rollers” or “pipes” These are the 24 long bars (in the centre of the picture below) that lift each of the 24 pallets and have levers where needed to be activated by a button. For example the C pipe associated with the chords would have levers for all buttons playing a chord with the note C in it – like C major, C minor, A minor, Ab major etc.
To be honest I’m unlikely to need any of the complicated bits for repairs because they tend to be slightly different on every accordion, but I have a store where I keep bits and they sometimes turn out to be useful. For now I’m just glad I don’t have to rebuild this accordion’s bass mechanism!
Fascinating, the Stradella mechanism is an incredibly ingenious design, maybe you’re now ready to dismantle a free bass converter (I’m having palpitations just thinking about it).
Thanks Brian. I saw a free bass converter being built in the Excelsior/Pigini factory when I visited Castlefidardo. (I blogged about it here) but I haven’t had to do one myself yet. If I do my mantra will be “methodical with lots of photos” which should help me on the way back!
Cheers
George.
Thank you for unveiling the unseen intricacies of the bass mechanism. It’s very clever, isn’t it?
What might be interesting for the future is a look at how treble and bass register switches work.
Regards
Pál
Good morning I was hoping you can help me, I have a Hohner Morino V N with a broken button a G I think is it possible to replace it without removing the mechanism , it is not completely broken it just looks ugly
Regards Seán
Hi Seán,
If you can get the button off (pliers?) you can normally glue a new one on without removing the whole bass mechanism. If you can’t find a button off an old accordion Hohner sell new buttons. http://www.hohner-cshop.de/en/Accordion/Parts-Accordion/Bass/Bass-buttons/
I think I have a unusual free bass converter system on my Bugari Conservatory 3RC Bayan ‘C’ System
It’s a ‘rotated’ version of the right hand, rather than mirrored, so that the top C#6 is at the chin end, and the bottom E1 is down the leg end.
The unusual bit is that the C’s are in row 6 (Stradella diminished row) and goes chromatically up from row 6 to 4, leg to chin.
This suits me, having come from piano, where the lower notes are played with the little finger rather then the thumb.
I’m assuming that a standard rotated system would normally have the C’s in row 4, and go chromatically up from rows 4 to 6, bottom to top, which may be a little more comfortable for the left hand.
Maybe you could confirm?
Thanks
Brian
Hi Brian, I’m no expert on free bass but I had a look around and yes I think it’s unusual! One of the best sources of bass diagrams is the manual for Roland’s FR-8 which being purly electronic can be set to lots of different standards. You can download the Owners Manual here (P103 has 5 free bass systems) and also the “improvements” manual which describes another 4 Systems! None of them are yours I think !
https://www.roland.com/uk/products/fr-8x/support/
Would you get deeper into the lever/pin arrangement on the 120 bss accordian
Hi Charlie,
Yes I guess so but maybe face to face rather than trying to write it all down……maybe one day I’ll do a post on it!
Cheers
George.
Hey George, so I have an titano accordion that has the same bass system and I realized that a couple of the buttons were bent upwards(It had fallen off the seat in the car a couple of days before) and I took off the treble side with the bellows attached and then I took out the reed blocks from the bass side. After I took them out, I flipped it upside-down, took off the cover and fixed the bent shafts. After that it was getting late so I went to bed, but in the morning when I woke up, I finished putting it back together but I didn’t realize that I hadn’t put the metal bracket back on that holds the shafts in place so once I put the reed blocks back in, I went to flip it back over to put the cover on and screw the hand-strap back in and about 15-25 of the shafts fell out. I just put them back in not realizing that they were supposed to go in a certain spot. I didn’t realize this until I started playing and it sounded off.
Do you have any tips on how I can find exactly which shafts are in the wrong place and where they are supposed to go. I would really appreciate the help because I don’t want to have to go and spend a bunch of money to get something fixed that I can just do myself.
Thanks, Hayden
Hi Hayden,
Ouch! I feel your pain – It’s so easy to make one small mistake that costs a lot of time! However you should be able to work out which shaft goes where. Each shaft has 3 (or on some accordions 4) pins on it. The row that fell out should be the 7ths and the Dims. So for each shaft you should be able to tell which levers it will operate so the pins have to be in a certain placing, and also the button should come nicely up to the hole. with a bit of trial and error you should be able to sort them out – be methodical! I’d put them in one at a time and check they make the right chord as you go. Best of luck. George.