Hi !
You can make new springs from piano wire. I've done that myself. Another "quick and dirty" fix, is to use a safety pin, cut to the same size as the original spring.
You can make an easy modification to the bass box of the HA 114, so you don't push the spoons down so much. It make the bass box feel more like a button bass box and it relieves tension on the springs, making them last longer.

What yoo do is to put a number of washers under the spoons, fastened by a screw, so the spoons just opens. It doesn't affect the sound, but it becomes more comfortably to play and uses less air.
The last thing you can do is to glue a pad of cloth o n top of the screws, if you don't like the clatter.

You can do the same thing on the treble side, but thats more tricky. You have to remove the fingerboard, and you use small pieces of cork or platic instead of washers.

Hope this will help you !

/Gunnar

Before I got my John Doucet box, I made some modifications on my HA-114. I replaced a broken spring on the bass side with a piece of spring steel wire I got at the local hardwares store for a buck or so. If you get the right gauge, you can just bend it into a V-shape and fit it in.

The other thing was to modify the horrid spoon setup in a way similar to what was described above. However, instead of screwing in washers, I made a little device out of a piece of cedar and a couple of chunks of a wine cork. The cedar piece is just a rectangular stick with some little slots on the ends that fits tightly between the spoons where they screw into the bass box. On top of this stick, I glued the cork, cut down to fit just under the spoon handles and allow the spoons to barely open. It is much more comfortable, and you don't have any new holes in the accordion that way.

Passing this on for Joe:


Hi Dwight, I tried to send an e-mail to Mac about his broken Hohner
springs but it was returned as undeliverable. Thanks to my webtv I can
lurk but not post on the forum. I wanted him to know that I may be
interested in his Hohner as is if I knew more about it. I also offered
to tell him how to make new springs and replace them himself if he would
prefer that. I am writing to you in the hopes you would be able to pass
this on to him. Post on the forum or maybe you would have better
success than I in using his posted address. I do not mind my address
posted on the forum if you need to do that. Thanks in advance.......Joe


joesonnier@webtv.net

Dwight,

Sorry for taking so long to respond. I came off of working an 8 day shift right before Thanksgiving and am just now catching back up on things. I have two Hohner HA-114's for sale. One is a 'G' and it is a little older and needs both bass spoons replaced. The other is a 'C' I bought off of e-bay about 1 year ago. It was advertised as played only a few times and it appeared brand new. It is in very good shape except that one of the bass spoons doesn't sit tightly when closed and there is some air leakage there. My plan was to fix the bass spoons and sell them on e-bay. If Joe S. or anyone else is interested in them let me know and we will try to work someting out.

Banjo Mac.

You will need to directly contact Joe, whose contact info is in the previous post. He can't get on this list because he uses WebTv.

Thanks Ben for your advice to modify the spoon setup you described above. I left out the piece of wood and glued a chunk of cork directly on the bass box. It´s much easier and much more comfortable to play now.