[Lowboy]

So to answer you question Alan, I have several of the HM-926s and HM-927s and have had about 65 percent of them leak a little to moderate, as delivered, even though they are in great shape cosmetically. The leakage is not so bad that you can’t play them, but I do like my melodicas as tight a drum. Several HM-926s and HM-927s arrived drum tight.

Almost all old Hohners will leak 5 percent at moderate pressures in my experience. Leaking 10 percent is relatively common in my mind when blowing really really hard without playing the keys. As soon as you open a valve by playing the instrument, I suspect a “5 or 10 percent” leak becomes insignificant as the air pressure is reduced and the air follows the path of least resistance (flowing through the valve).

You may recall I took a HM-927 apart for the dishwasher test. I did not disassemble the key assembly because it looked like a like a lot of tricky work. It was difficult to take the melodica apart because of the 5 large screws that seem to pass through the air chamber and through the whole melodica. Those screws were in tight, hard to pull out, and seem to require sealing. All in all, based on limited knowledge, these models seem like they would be difficult to service–partly because they are built so well.

Lowboy