Month: July 2017

How my printer paid for itself: vintage accordian repair

This isn’t all that mechanically impressive, but I thought I would share a success story that I had using my printer to repair an accordian.http://ift.tt/2thVWyu decided to try to learn an instrument. Instead of going with something “easy”, affordable, or at the very least popular and very well documented for lessons, I picked an accordian. I actually found one at a goodwill for $75. The only problem was it was missing a key. It wasn’t until I got him that I figured out it wasn’t just the key, but the whole spring and housing. If you pushed down the lever, it stayed down until you lifted it back up with a screw driver.Since the accordian was made probably in the 50s or 60s, they didn’t have any spare accordian keys on Amazon. Go figure. Luckily I found accordian springs on eBay.I got to work and drafted a new top key and bottom section using a simular F key as reference. Once I had them printed, the spring seated, and the lever back in place, it was only a matter of gluing the 2 halves together to sandwich the lever arm.After the glue cured, miraculously it worked. I put a small section of painters tape at the end of the key towards the face cover to help the spring bring the key back to the closed position. The spring isn’t as strong as the original springs in the instructment. The key functions great and feels natural while playing. I only wish I had white PLA so it matched better, instead of my poor paint job.All said and done the only thing I paid for was the spring, when it would have cost much more to find a repair specialist to source or build a new key. When people complain that 3D printers are only useful for trinkets, I can demonstrate that they’re amazing for printing parts that no longer exist from the manufacturer, or were custom to begin with.Thanks for reading! http://ift.tt/2tsDN59