Thanks, ya'll. It was hard work, I must say! Elton also corrected a huge mistake I made. I was right about to start tuning, and didn't line the screws on target with the bellows frame.... Used a power screwdriver, and made another hole in the bellows frame, and the screw busted clear out the frame.... So, he built brand new bellows frames. Needless to say, I made sure the screws were in the holes, next time around! Also only used a regular screwdriver. I've never had that exact problem, ever before.

CHAPEAU !!!!!

It sounds terrific Jim

Jim nice work on that box and as always super super playing

Jim,

That was a pleasure to hear. I've often wondered about the quality of the left side that you hear in old recordings. The way those old boxes seemed to honk. I've always loved it and greatly desire that sound.

Your left side sounds different from what I'm used to. How does the left side tuning differ from what is the norm these days?

John in Oregon

Outstanding job, great playing.

Kudos to John Doucet.

Your playing makes me really happy. No foolin', I'm sitting here with a mashed knee knocked out on opiates and the sound of this beauty makes me a whole lot happier than I was a few minutes ago.

Rock on brother...

Yes, happy to see and hear you again Jim. I was wondering where you were all the time, but you must have been tweaking that old Globe. A lot of work maybe, but the result is worth it!!

Thanks again ya'll. I cannot take all the credit, as I mentioned. Elton did a lot of work to begin with, because it was his accordion. Things I could never have done myself, with out wood work training. He had originally fixed it up enough to his liking, but I'm obsessed with going as far as I can go with improvements on any accordion. Be it a handmade, a mid grade German, or this treasure.

I have a confession to make. The Germans made very poor bass side set ups, in those days so I've already started working on re-working the bass side....

It's going to have a mixture of different reeds. I've already transplanted the bass-note reed chambers from a 114 Hohner. I fit the big bass note with a 'D' Binci. The accompanying bass note is a mid Hohner reed.

The chord will have 8 reeds, like the old set up. But, they will be 4 individual plates. 3 Hohner 114 reed and the extra, high pitched globe reed, that accompanied the old chord plate, which is 'A' both push and pull. An extra drone, which I believe helped partially give it the unique sound.

I'm having special chord chambers made, with the little side-car like chamber for the globe reed.

I hate to say this, but the globe's 'chord plate' was pretty weak. Partially because the reeds are tiny, compared to anything today. The bass response, and air consumption, I improved, but I want to make it even better.

But I believe the real magic is in the treble reeds. The closest we could get to the sound is Hohner, or Salpa. But Salpa's no more. Neither are close enough sounding, however.

i'll put a 4th vid out soon, with what I'm undertaking. I know the old bass reeds had a unique sound, but I weighed the differences.

I also found the chord plate going out of tune, over and over. And let me tell ya, that thing is a paaaaaaiiiin in the asss to tune.

BUT, the thing that amazes me, is that not a one reed on the treble side has gone out of tune, and I've play the crap out of it (within reasonable volume). And after spending time tuning them, I discovered they're stronger than any reeds I've ever tuned. Not the case for the chord plate, however.

The thing's playability became optimum, but the bass side kept irking me.

I also discovered that when I removed the old bass side reed chambers, the plate inside was warped, so I did a pretty decent job sanding some lumps flat.



PS: John A- The chord plate is tuned exactly like today's, and bass notes are tuned, just as the bass notes are today. As I said it's a unique sound, but gas guzzling

It's a bit unusual for the one piece reed plate to be weak. The old German accordions I've played and tinkered with had bass sides that far overpowered the treble, and all had that one piece with small reeds. Wonder if something else is coming in to play there. I am redoing a Globe D now, which also has the extra chord reed, also A both directions, curious how it will compare. I like the idea of the 4th chord reed, and have been thinking of trying it in my handmades.

I thought it was strange too. My 20's Hohner in the octave of high A had a loud chord plate, but that's only compared to it's three sets of reeds, and such teeny tiny reeds on the treble side. It also had the typical spoon set up, so that may have something to do with it; I'm not sure.

On the subject of those treble reeds... these Globe treble side reeds (or the general O stamp reeds), are far stronger than even the largest steel reeds in that 20's Hohner. They look pretty much the same, except the Hohner ones had a square stamp.

Another thing I noticed is that the chord plate in the Globe had no stamp at all, and the reed tongues were noticeably thinner than those of comparable size in the treble side.

I think you're right about that 4th plate, high A drone . I wish I had it in all of my accordions.

There's a song by Balfa Toujours, where Dirk is playing an accordion, on it's own (with him singing), in a recording, where they makes a point to have the bass side up front, and loud.

I always wondered, how the heck did that sound so different, and awesome. I think the 4th plate was the answer I've been looking for, over ten years.

I first saw that on Olav Bergflodt's boxes, from Norway. He uses a 4th chord reed as standard on his diatonics. I'd been wanting to try it ever since seeing that, then this Globe came to me with it, and I wondered if it was a unique thing until I saw yours.

I've heard those reeds were made by different manufactorers, even though they all looked the same and had the same O stamp. No telling what variables came in to play on the sound and volume of different boxes.