Hello:

I just received (from England) a new Hohner HA114. This Chinese made Hohner is crap! I cannot tell my wife this, as she IS Chinese!
Anyways, the quality is very poor. It sounds okay. The flapper cover plate is coming apart (had nails missing, and now the ones placed are coming out. This isn't a major issue as I took the cover off anyways. The bass side hand strap is narrower and thin. The reed slide knobs are on crooked, and the bellows are CHEAP and leaky. Maybe need to look at the bass air and chord "buttons" which are thinner than in the German made ones. Hohner should be truly ashamed of themselves for "offering" such a shabby made instrument, especially for the price. Bast****! I had to order mine from England, because Hohner doesn't offer D tuned HA114's here in the USA. Anyways, I am looking for a couple of parts: 1) "D" rings for applying straps, and a better Bass hand strap. Maybe an actual cajun accordion left hand strap? Anyone know where I can gets these parts?
Beware of these new Hohners!

Don

Don,

I would use a D ring, reluctantly, but since you admitetly bought an inferior accordion, i'll rather get a couple of D's at home depot or any good hardware store.
The rings are used in several industries, like art framing, luggage and so on.
In my view the Hohner straps harware is vastly superior, , looks better,and is the "right" one to use, and needs only 2 or 3 very small screws to affixed down.
The D rings on the other hand requires , larger screws as the mounting holes are much larger in diameter.
One other important note: you better choose the "right" area to mount your strap brackets, a bit too muche left or right and your accordion will be totally unbalanced, and it will feel really weird to hold.
Not only that but you'll end up with a lot of holes should the hardware needs repositioning.

Don,

"All" European accordion builders use mostly Hohner made straps hardware.

Only LA box builders use D-rings and in my humble view it's a real eye sore to say the least as in order to affix this ugly hardware down ( witch BTW was never, when designed, destined to be used in conjonction with accordions purposes in mind)one has to use a large screw, witch invariably, "pierces",right trough the middle of the accordion lovely decorative strip "GASP"!!!!!!!!.

I'm pretty sure that Hohner and other straps screw holes are enough wide apart to avoid the strip completely, should the strip be narrow enough.

I remember asking "Junior" once to make for a very narow strip, thus avoiding this very unfortunate visual design "faux pas".

As you may know European accordion buiders would "never" dream of using D-rings, and I know the argument, that "who cares", as this is our product and so there, but you know Don, they were making accordions long before Americans did, and since "All" LA built boxes use "a lot" of European made parts, why not do the same for straps holding harware.

They stiil hod the fort on us in craftsmanship.

I though that MR.MIllER at one time supplied Hohner parts, would'nt hurt to ask his grand son, if indeed he still does.

Don,

Sorry to hear about your bad experience!

Re: hardware, I have purchased D-rings, straps, etc.
from Larry Miller

http://www.accordions.com/bonteecajun/

I'm not sure if he still supplies parts because he's
told me that he's heading into accordion retirement

Good luck on your recover mission ..

--Big

Actually, that is not shocking at all, but it is sad.

It seems that everything is total crap these days, and most of it seems to come from China. Screws that I buy at Home Depot split in half while being screwed in with a hand screw driver under normal hand torque. My plumber replaced a couple shut off valves that started leaking when I used them to shut off water to a faucet that needed some washers replaced. The valves were not that old - maybe 6 years. They had cheap plastic stems. And it seems that you cannot even obtain valves of higher quality. The list goes on and on.

Anyway, sorry for your bad experience. I hope you can make it work for you. My first accordion was a German made HA-114, and it is still going strong.

-David

There's a fella in Scotland- Charlie Marshall, "CGM musical" who supplies lots of hohner parts, they're all listed the CGM musical website.

Had a bad experience with the modern 114 myself as a first accordion, sent it back.
The old german 114s are cracking instruments and cost half the price of a new one- so get it sold!

Hi AJ,

I had the same thoughs about Hohner 114c,
I bought one 03-04 months ago to start playing accordion
but did not much anything with it,
and quicly went into searching the real box thing,

But 114's are light and funny to play, and they deserve a second look:
I did a lot of air lacks debugging with mine (second hand),
changed the spoon springs to heavier ones (safety pins)
and changed the right hand springs to lighter ones
(I made them myself with piano string: 0.70mm was too strong, but 0.65mm is good to me)
a little bit rough but funny:

Sounds like you've got it sussed Christophe- I'm envious of your tinkering skills!
Nice tune.