Reply To: Silvertone Orgamonica

I have now been working on the Silvertone for the last few days, and it is now playable though not as air tight as I’d like. When I first acquired this instrument, I did not know what I have since learned, which is that most early Italian melodicas, with the exception of the Clavietta, have five hexagonal headed bolts on the bottom. You remove these bolts and then pop the keyboard and works of the melodica out the top. The reed chamber is sealed with a gasket against the inside of the back cover. For some reason I didn’t figure that out and ended up prying the box of the Silvertone apart.
Consequently, the first step in refurbishing was to glue the box back together again, which I did with a product called Liquid Nails. I did this in two stages, letting the glue dry overnight for two nights.
One thing to be noticed right away is that my craftsmanship is not very good, but I’m working on it! Here you see the original gasket material, which eventually crumbles on old Italian melodicas. This is why they are seldom playable.
Top and bottom views now, with the old gasket scraped off with a small pen knife and X-Acto knife, and then bottom view with new gasket. 1/8″ foam gasket tape — I’ll try to figure out where I purchased this tape. It is adhesive on one side, which has a covering that peels off. It adheres very well. It’s a bit hard to get to apply in perfectly straight lines. It is also stretchy.
Notice the irregularity in the placement of reeds on this instrument. This seems characteristic, and it is also characteristic of the key mechanisms and pads. When these were assembled, I’m sure the workman had to do some bending and twisting to get everything lined up and working. Key pads have to be spaced evenly enough so they don’t interfere with each other, which results in a note sticking or an adjacent note also playing. I had to do some of this with this Silvertone, and I’ve had to do it with my Chordiana and a couple of others I’ve been working on.
Next up: The strips running under the open end of the white keys and black keys also have deteriorated and need to be replaced. Otherwise, clacking of keys is a problem.
To be continued…