After a brilliant Swanage Folk Festival, I got my box home and, to my horror, heard a slight hissing sound. Nightmare. A few seconds’ listening suggested it was coming from behind the grille. So off it came.

 

Somehow the wax on the pallets had melted and allowed a valve or two to slip out of place. The wax melts at a very low temperature (a bit too low in my opinion). I carefully used a soldering iron to warm the armature (not the wax itself!) in short bursts. It took very little heating indeed to allow me to move the valves back in place.

My third- (or perhaps fourth-) hand Dino Baffetti melodeon has some pretty impressive basses, but the tonics on the chord side (key-note) have slowly started to sound a bit out of tune. Jon Spiers suggested that whilst it might be a problem with the reeds, the shape of the chamber also affects how reeds speak. It was noticeable that the tuning was fine at low volume, but at higher pressure the tone bent up as much as 50 cents. I took apart the chamber and bellows to see if anything was amiss, but it all looks in order. I did notice that the dust filters on the air vents were looking a bit mucky and that that might be causing the problem: