Denis Slater's Accordions

Introduction

Denis Slater has made three accordions (melodeons) in the last few years. The first (on the left in the picture) was made entirely by him apart from the reeds and buttons. The other two were made as an identical pair (the instrument on the right in the picture). The now follows his description of each instrument and his comments on the art and science of accordion making...

DENIS 1

Construction

The case is mostly cedar wood reinforced with lime at the corners. The keyboard of lime with lime levers and springs made from music wire. The bass keys were carved from lime into the shape of spoon base keys.

Tuning Pattern

Nine keys in the Key of D starting at B below D. Three keys for accidentals G#/ Bb, C/D#, G#/Bb. Bass: D / A fundamental, D/A chord. The accidentals make it quite easy to play in the key of A as well as D, and, at a pinch, in G.

Reeds

Delicia reeds made in the Czech Republic. The instrument is two-voice with the reed chambers formed by means of a frame immediately behind the sound holes, which gives quite a sharp sound.

Bellows

Self constructed

Remarks

It works well with plenty of air pressure, though the home made bellows were very stiff for a while.

DENIS 2/1 and 2/2

Construction

Made principally from cherry wood with mahogany corners. The keyboard of lime with lime levers. The bass action is made up of wire rods with wooden dowel ends carrying the bass buttons. These rods operate brass levers which carry further wire rods with the padded wooden clappers on the end. The brass levers have music wire return springs.

Reeds

The reeds are made by Bafetti in Italy. The reeds are mounted on standard pattern reed blocks made from soft wood. They were provided by www.akkordeonservice.de.

Tuning Pattern

This is standard G/D tuning but with an extra pair of buttons to provide the F/Eb and G#/Bb notes in both octaves. The bass has 12 buttons providing all the standard G/D basses in both directions of the bellows action.

Bellows

The bellows are Erica style bellows.

Remarks

This pair of instruments is a joint effort between myself and a friend in Germany (www.akkordeonservice.de). I have done all the construction work, he provided the reeds and did the tuning. He also designed the bass and treble tuning pattern.

The work on these two instruments is not yet complete. 2/2 needs some more work on the reed tuning, and 2/1 is not yet satisfactorily airtight. This may require stronger springs on the bass levers.

General Observations on Accordion Making

This is the extent of my adventures in accordeon making. Some of the difficulties were:

1. The bellows were Erica-sized but the maker had used broader card for the bellows folds than Hohner Erica bellows, so the reed blocks would not fit inside the bellows when they were closed. This called for a deeper case.
2. The ideal starting for an accordeon design is the size and number of the reed plates. But these instruments had to be built around the size of the bellows , i.e. roughly the size of a Hohner Erica, but with extra notes. This resulted in the keys having to be closer together which resulted in the keys binding and playing chords! The solution was to make a stepped keyboard.
3. On account of these extra buttons having to be squeezed into the available space the wires carrying the clappers for the treble notes had to have an increasingly offset crank as the progressed along the row from right to left.Also the clappers themselves have to be of mimimum size to fit the space and not bind on each other.

I hope that these observations might be of help to anyone else thinking of having a go at making an accordeon. Denis Slater

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