Right now I am fixing up a Hohner Musette IV, which is about the newest
thing I want to work on. That's an Atlantic IV with LMMM instead of
LMMH. The rubber grommets that lift 20 of the 41 keys were worn out, but fortunately I had replacements Len Killick sent me from Germany a few
years ago.

The keyboards on these Atlantic accordions work great, and are fun to
play, except on most of them the rubber parts wear out, and the rubber
grommets are hard to come by.

The other thing that wears out is the so-called "steering box" which is
the bubble with rotating arms that transmits the motion from the treble switches to the slide inside the accordion. This part seems impossible
to get from Germany and the corresponding part on Italian accordions
does not wear out, since the German version has a plastic body, and the
Italian has a metal body. Once the box wears out, the tone switches are useless, and the accordion is useless.

Once a retired machinist offered to make them for me free, but I have
lost his phone number.

Hohner may have had a Swiss branch at one time, that I am told was who
made the "Musette" model which had 4 long reed blocks instead of the 8
divided blocks like the Atlantic line, and single rod vlave lifters
instead of the compound lifters with the grommets. It was 4/5 instead of
4/4 but the bass blocks looked the same except there was an extra block
for the 12 highest notes.
Someone sent me one of those, but the steering box is worn out.

Also I have an Atlantic IV with straight treble valve lifters for all 41
keys that has a removable resonator cavity instead of the roll-up window
shade mute. The steering box on that one is in the middle and not on the
end, but I haven't checked to see if it has a metal body like the
Italian ones.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Am Montag, 5. Februar 2018 16:43:29 UTC+1 schrieb Ike:

Right now I am fixing up a Hohner Musette IV, which is about the newest thing I want to work on. That's an Atlantic IV with LMMM instead of
LMMH. The rubber grommets that lift 20 of the 41 keys were worn out, but fortunately I had replacements Len Killick sent me from Germany a few
years ago.

The keyboards on these Atlantic accordions work great, and are fun to
play, except on most of them the rubber parts wear out, and the rubber grommets are hard to come by.

I think Hohner have now realised how vital the rubber parts are for the thousands of Atlantics and Lucias that are still out there: they put the price up a lot! Same for a lot of the spares.

The other thing that wears out is the so-called "steering box" which is
the bubble with rotating arms that transmits the motion from the treble switches to the slide inside the accordion. This part seems impossible
to get from Germany and the corresponding part on Italian accordions
does not wear out, since the German version has a plastic body, and the Italian has a metal body. Once the box wears out, the tone switches are useless, and the accordion is useless.

Once a retired machinist offered to make them for me free, but I have
lost his phone number.

I have recently been wondering if these vital and unobtainable plastic parts might be a project for the new 3D-Printer technology. Don't know enough about it yet, but if it could produce the steering box plastic part and a number of other difficult to
get plastic parts maybe worth investigating...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/24/2018 4:28 AM, Len Killick wrote:

Am Montag, 5. Februar 2018 16:43:29 UTC+1 schrieb Ike:

Right now I am fixing up a Hohner Musette IV, which is about the newest
thing I want to work on. That's an Atlantic IV with LMMM instead of
LMMH. The rubber grommets that lift 20 of the 41 keys were worn out, but
fortunately I had replacements Len Killick sent me from Germany a few
years ago.

The keyboards on these Atlantic accordions work great, and are fun to
play, except on most of them the rubber parts wear out, and the rubber
grommets are hard to come by.

I think Hohner have now realised how vital the rubber parts are for the thousands of Atlantics and Lucias that are still out there: they put the price up a lot! Same for a lot of the spares.

The other thing that wears out is the so-called "steering box" which is
the bubble with rotating arms that transmits the motion from the treble
switches to the slide inside the accordion. This part seems impossible
to get from Germany and the corresponding part on Italian accordions
does not wear out, since the German version has a plastic body, and the
Italian has a metal body. Once the box wears out, the tone switches are
useless, and the accordion is useless.

Once a retired machinist offered to make them for me free, but I have
lost his phone number.

I have recently been wondering if these vital and unobtainable plastic parts might be a project for the new 3D-Printer technology. Don't know enough about it yet, but if it could produce the steering box plastic part and a number of other difficult to

get plastic parts maybe worth investigating...

The metal nparts of the steering box could not that easily be made by
printing, but what should be done IMHO is make the body of it from
metal, like the Italians do. Hohner does list the metal arms separately
in Europe, but I have no idea if they are available or not.
there are probably plenty of old Atlantic IV's to scavenge from, or just
make flip levers for each set like the old squeezeboxes 80 years ago.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/24/2018 4:28 AM, Len Killick wrote:

Am Montag, 5. Februar 2018 16:43:29 UTC+1 schrieb Ike:

Right now I am fixing up a Hohner Musette IV, which is about the newest
thing I want to work on. That's an Atlantic IV with LMMM instead of
LMMH. The rubber grommets that lift 20 of the 41 keys were worn out, but
fortunately I had replacements Len Killick sent me from Germany a few
years ago.

The keyboards on these Atlantic accordions work great, and are fun to
play, except on most of them the rubber parts wear out, and the rubber
grommets are hard to come by.

I think Hohner have now realised how vital the rubber parts are for the thousands of Atlantics and Lucias that are still out there: they put the price up a lot! Same for a lot of the spares.

The other thing that wears out is the so-called "steering box" which is
the bubble with rotating arms that transmits the motion from the treble
switches to the slide inside the accordion. This part seems impossible
to get from Germany and the corresponding part on Italian accordions
does not wear out, since the German version has a plastic body, and the
Italian has a metal body. Once the box wears out, the tone switches are
useless, and the accordion is useless.

Once a retired machinist offered to make them for me free, but I have
lost his phone number.

I have recently been wondering if these vital and unobtainable plastic parts might be a project for the new 3D-Printer technology. Don't know enough about it yet, but if it could produce the steering box plastic part and a number of other difficult to

get plastic parts maybe worth investigating...

Thanks Len. A retired machinist offered to build a steering box for me,
but like a doofuss, i did not save his contact info. I was still using
the rubber parts you sent me, to do this job. they don't wear out so
much, as they get brittle and stretch due to the rubber oxidizing.
The rubber parts could be made by molding them, but if they are still affordable, it would be simpler just to buy them.
however, Hohner does not answer emails, itseems, from anyone in the

or Canada any more, as they have closed the U.S. branch and gotten

an exclusive contract with an outfit in Nashville which only sells parts
it already lists, and does not seem to offer special ordering from
Germany, which hohner USA used to do, which makes sense from a purely
business perspective.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

I usually find the metal parts are OK, just the plastic part is a problem: difficult to repair and Hohner no longer have replacements, which is where my thoughts of 3D printing came in. The "wechselgummi" are still available but the price went up a lot (
like all other Hohner spares). I have a second source for the rubber parts too, but it is also expensive compared to the prices from a few years ago - but that's the same for everything, not just accordion parts!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)