Hi gang,

I bought an Ariette a year or so ago thinking, how bad can it be? I'm sure some of you know the answer. The tuning is adequate and the tone is so-so. I have since bought a much nicer, LA built box which stays in my hands as much as possible.

The biggest fault I have with the Ariette as a strictly learning instrument is its shortness of breath. I opened her up, and the valves are seriously curled away from the reed plates.

My question is this: should I replace the valves in hopes of imporoving the playability? If so, does anyone have a good source for a full set of treble valves? What might a skilled repair person charge for this service, and would it even be worth it? Or should I return it to the world of eBay and hope to get my money back out without getting bad feedback for selling a barely playable "instrument?"

Buying something cheap can be more expensive in the long run.

That's the easy way out, ebay, bagging someone else with it. To replace the curled up valves can be a lot of work: taking the individual reeds out, remove the valves and glue residue, organize fitting replacements, glue those in, and usually you have to tune some reeds as well after the job. I wonder if any Arriette is worth that kind of labor, unless you see it as a hobby & learning job for yourself; the materials involved wont cost more than say 40 U$D. - Nout

I hate the thought of saddling a hopeful learner with this toad. Pardon the mixed metaphor. I have no honest words with which to describe it. "It has no visible holes," "it isn't infested with vermin," "it emits no offensive odors."

If I do decide to upgrade it I will learn something about box repair first hand, and I'll still never play it. At least the case is sound.

Cut your losses and throw it away. If it were a 114 then it might be worth repairing.

That occured to me, too, TJ. I'm really not inclined to make some one else unhappy. That might create some sort of karmic backwash I'd rather avoid.

Jim

I've found myself in the same situation as you. I put mine on a shelf as an ornament.

TJ has the right answer.

Don't throw good money and time after bad. The Arrietta isn't worth it. You apparently got one of the real bad ones. I also started on an Arrietta but I was lucky. Mine had tight bellows, no sticky keys and sounded OK. It did use a lot of air due to the cheap reeds but other wise it served it's purpose. Just keep it in the closet and if you meet a kid who wants to learn you can give it to him/her to get started with.

It seems a lot of us started on that little piece of c r a p. Like Dana mine worked just fine got me over 1 yr of use. The only problem was the air. I do just as Dana does keep it for friends who say they might want to give Cajun accordion a try. Let them take it home for as long as they want. Brings new players into the mix. If you can enjoy playing it then you belong to the group.

Nout is right, it's time consuming work.
But the good news is that changing out the crappy "simulated leather" valves for ventile (not natural leather) valves WILL make quite a difference in one of these cheap accordions.

I have done it and it does help.
Other things that help are completely removing the bellows from the accordion and flexing it in ALL directions to it's extremes (like some exercise device) for an hour while watching TV or listening to your favorite album.

The third and final thing to make it play better is to painstakingly adjust the reed gap on each reed to achieve the most sound with the least air. (for the expert repair tech)

Now that you have spent $500 of time trying to put "lipstick on a pig", you might just be better off selling the thing, adding $500 and buying a good used box!

DP

I have 2 of these and mine are also short of breath, tho maybe not as bad as yours? Might be the humidity? I'm in San Diego. The one I mainly use was hung on a door knob over night a couple times when I first got it in order to get the bellows to stretch out- they were so stiff! I bought the second one new for $160 just to have in case some friends here wanted to mess around.
The great thing about the Ariettes is that they allow a newbie like me to do two things without spending big bucks on a good LA built box. One is learn where the notes are on the push/pulls, BUT just as important, they let people try one of these accordions to see if they want to stick with it. You get to find out first whether you WANT to play one, then whether you CAN play one.
My Arriette is crap, but I was so thrilled to pick it up and bring it home after waiting so long to get a Cajun type box. Literally had tears in my eyes over a piece of crap. I bought 6 or so smaller ones before that just to learn about them.
Got another accordion on the way now! An old 3 stop Eagle in G.
CHEERS!