i need some advice for servicing a stagi hayden duet 46

[smeef]

hello everyone, new user here. i'm also relatively new to concertinas but i have been practicing with an anglo for about a month and i can play one semi-intermediate difficulty song currently.

 

anyways i recently got a rochelle 2 and i think i would do better with a duet than anglo so after a bit of research i settled on getting a stagi hayden duet 46 instead of trading in the rochelle and paying the same for a troubadour which has fewer buttons. in my research i heard that stagi used to be pretty hit and miss, but after the company was taken over by new owners, quality control got better and they're more consistent now.

i had been emailing will wakker about how the trade in thing works before deciding not to trade up and told him i decided to go with a stagi instead because of more buttons for the same price and he informed me that because of how stagi actions are constructed, they need to be serviced more often, and that i should procure some replacement "rubber action connectors" so i'm prepared when something breaks to be able to fix it, and that stagi uses an action design he referred to as "rubber band action". i can't find any descriptions online about this or even pictures or diagrams of the actions and which parts he's referring to. i can open the instrument and look at it when it gets here but in the mean time i'd like to do as much research as i can on the matter.

the only image i can find anywhere online of a stagi action is a picture in this thread where i can't make out which part is supposed to be the rubber action connectors. i don't know if it matters that the thread is about an english, while mine is a duet. do they use different mechanisms? i also don't know where i would get a set of these parts. he suggested that i ask the retailer i got it from, which is red cow music, but i don't see anything on their site about any replacement parts. 

[Ken_Coles]

If it is like the Italian concertinas I've used, photos in an ancient article I wrote about them may help. The rubber tubes are the black things on the buttons above where the action arm goes through them. The late Geo. Salley wrote an article about fixing up Stagis; if I can find it I'll post that link too.

 

Ken

[Don Taylor]

If it is a new Stagi than I do not think that you have anything to worry about for a few years, but eventuallly some black rubber sleeves that are on each button to hold it vertical and to stop it falling off inside the concertina will need replacing as they age and crumble.

 

Maybe Stagi are using something better these days, but they used to use a soft, black rubber that did not age well.  Replacing these is an easy, if somewhat tedious, process and you can use almost any sort of tubing that will fit.  Neoprene tubing will probably outlive you!

 

Here is picture:

 

Here is a link to the article that Ken referred to:

 

https://www.concertina.net/gs_stagirepair.html

Edited March 11, 2023 by Don Taylor

[smeef]

oh wow. thanks ken and don for the fast replies. if this is the case then yeah i think you're right, this does fit the description of what was described to me. i got the impression from what i was told that this is a bigger problem than it now appears to be. 

Edited March 11, 2023 by smeef

[Daniel Hersh]

2 hours ago, Ken_Coles said:

If it is like the Italian concertinas I've used, photos in an ancient article I wrote about them may help. The rubber tubes are the black things on the buttons above where the action arm goes through them. The late Geo. Salley wrote an article about fixing up Stagis; if I can find it I'll post that link too.

 

Ken

 

Here's George Salley's article: https://www.concertina.net/gs_stagirepair.html

[genepinefield]

Hi
I have improved four Stagi English concertinas. I used an insulation cap.

https://concertina.pinefield.asia/improvement-concertina-beginners-and-self-taught/

[DaveRo]

@genepinefieldUseful pictures.  During the 9 months I had a Stagi Hayden (from new) I didn't take it apart - nothing went wrong with it. I was tempted to just to find out what causes the different slope of the buttons between  left and right.

 

While the 'parallel levers' design has obviously stayed the same over the years I wonder whether the materials or details of the buttons or valves have changed much?

 

(I used Google Tranlate  - behaviour will vary according to your Google settings. Here it requests a popup which is actually a new tab.

https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=websites )

[genepinefield]

On 4/2/2023 at 4:05 PM, DaveRo said:

I wonder whether the materials or details of the buttons or valves have changed much?

Hello

Compared to 15 years ago, the quality of the metal parts at the bottom of the buttons is very poor.

Perhaps the machines that die-cut them have not been updated.