Getting rid of a musty, mildew smell from my accordian

[tvcdboombox]

I have a very nice, but now kind of smelly, Soprani amplifonic accordion that I want to play - but the smell gets in the way.

I had stored the accordion and its case in a damp basement for several years without checking on it and - voila! - this smell. It's probably a bit unhealthly as well, if it's really mildew.

Anyway, does anyone have any tips on how to deal with this? [No bad jokes, please].

Thanks.

[DoN. Nichols]

On 2014-03-31, tvcdboombox <MBV...@aol.com> wrote:

> I have a very nice, but now kind of smelly, Soprani amplifonic
> accordion that I want to play - but the smell gets in the way.

Ouch!

> I had stored the accordion and its case in a damp basement for several
> years without checking on it and - voila! - this smell. It's probably a
> bit unhealthly as well, if it's really mildew.

> Anyway, does anyone have any tips on how to deal with this? [No bad
> jokes, please].

I have read of people putting mothballs in the instrument for a
while -- but I don't know whether that smell would be worse or better.

One thing which I would *consider* trying is getting a
germicidal UV lamp and setting it up inside the instrument -- moving it
around from time to time. You might have to remove the reed blocks and
move the UV source down so it shines in one or two sets of valve holes
at a time.

Also -- remove the bellows from both ends, and lower the light
to the middle of the extended bellows, to clean out as much as possible
of the interior surface.

Or if you are an arc weldor*, set it up open near where you weld
-- far enough away to avoid the hot metal bits which go flying, but near
enough so the intense UV gets in there. Perhaps set it up behind a
shield, and set up a mirror to bounce the UV inside.

* A "weldor" (person) uses a "welder" (machine), before anyone
comments on the spelling.

Note -- the UV will very rapidly fade anything red on the
instrument, so if you have a red exterior, wrap that part in heavy black
cloth.

Squeeze On,
DoN.

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