Hi all - I joined the forum back in December and chimed in for a couple TOTMs, but have been too busy to keep up. I moved to Philadelphia to start an apprenticeship in the repair shop slash accordion dealership Liberty Bellows, and have been working there for 40 hours a week, and in my basement for all remaining hours of the week. Minus a camping trip and a few nights on the town of course... at any rate, all unisonic instruments have been serviced and consigned away at the shop. I ebayed my Rochelle and picked up a 30 key Lachenal that I have been painstakingly restoring. A Gabbanelli 1 row in D has gotten a key-action reset, a G/C Merlin has been swing tuned, and the old G/C pokerwork has (as of last night, or early this morning rather) been completely rebuilt and converted to an LM D/G, which is now my favorite.
Just wanted to say, this forum has been a useful resource and especially thanks to Lester for his charts, ABC, and for reminding me that I don't have to spend 10 grand on Castagnaris to have a good time - I mean, there are quite a few of them at the shop and I do have to walk past them every time I go up the stairs to the break room, and they are pretty dang snazzy. I'm lucky to not be in serious debt - I've come out just about even from selling 3 boxes after putting in a lot of work and then buying 3 and putting in a lot more work, if you don't count all the time.... but now I have what I need to play the stuff I want to play, and that's what I'm going to do.
I even did my first wedding gig as a diatonic player last month - I was nervous about the size of my repertoire but I don't think anyone noticed when I played the same tune twice.
Anyways, I have learned a LOT about accordion servicing and tuning so far this year and will be proud to contribute freely to this excellent resource as we squeeze our way into the future.
Cheers. Also, a few pictures for fun. The first is of all four boxes together, then a couple of work-in-progress photos that I like:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_4ZHvkvFq-RcmdCMWp2d3Brejghttps://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_4ZHvkvFq-RRnpEUldudjRXRFkhttps://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_4ZHvkvFq-RNkpKaEVQa29GRzg