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[Jesse Smith]

I have an old D/G Pokerwork and sometimes (not consistently), some of the basses on the push are slow to speak. The G never seems to have a problem, but sometimes the C and D basses "choke". This usually seems to happen when the box is under higher pressure because of trying to "pop" a treble note. It has been interfering with some bass runs I've been trying to include in a tune recently.

 I gather this is a somewhat common ailment of these Hohners but I can't recall what the cure was. Is this something I can tweak myself or does it involve rewaxing, etc. and will need to be done by an experienced fettler?

Are there workarounds in playing style to avoid choking off the notes?

[Anahata]

Nothing as tricky as rewaxing; usually this can be fixed by widening the gap between the tip of the reed and the end of the slot, which you do by carefully bending the reed (i.e. lifting out of the slot) sufficiently past its elastic limit so it returns with a slightly larger gap.

The rule of thumb for initial set is for the gap to be about the same as the reed thickness, but each has to be finely adjusted for best actual playing results. Small but significant changes many not even be visible: you have to reassemble the box and play it to find if it's worked. If you go too far, the reed will fail to start on light bellows pressure and you have to bend it back a bit.

Of course the reeds on the inside of the block (the 'pull' reeds) are trickier to do, and there are hooked reed lifters to help you do the job without taking the blocks off.

[Jesse Smith]

Well, that sounds promising. So I need to just gently bend it upwards, away from the reed block? What do you use to pull it, a small flathead screwdriver blade maybe?

[Theo]

There are other things to check before you try bending the reeds.  Valve have a big influence on how well the reeds sound.  The valves should lie flat and lift up easily, so give them a quick check first.  And very occasionally the bass reed block can start to break away from its sole plate, so check that too.  There will be an obvious crack if that is a problem. 

[Marc Serafini]

My bass reed blocks are like this. It's permit to augment the bass air volume and then the pression become softer on the attack. So the reed start better and the sound is louder and on top of this more stable when the pressure increase.  But dont tell to other builders :)
Could be made with bigger reeds

[Winston Smith]

What was that about "innovation"? Simple but space-saving, excellent!

[Jesse Smith]

To follow up, the other day I attended Scott Bellinger's accordion repair workshop and during the section on setting the reed gap, we slightly increased the gap on the two reeds in question (and then Scott quickly checked and corrected the tuning). Since then I have not noticed any choked notes (knock on wood). Looks like that was the issue! Thanks everyone for the discussion and suggestions.