Takemi Jade Melody 11000 Comfort Masseuse

In the top photo, notice how much beefier the new part on the right is, than the original part on the left.

It's been a long time since I added anything to my blog, but here I go and we are in a new area here. LOL I hope that some owners of the above named massage chair contact me. It's a shame to have these potentially great chairs in-operative.

In May of '07, I bought a Jade Melody 11000 and had it shipped to my house. All was well, real well, until one of the parts inside overheated and broke/melted. I both called and emailed the Florida Takemi company and was met with a lot of resistance until I told them all I wanted was the part that broke and told them what I thought was wrong with it that made it break in the first place. They sent me a new part. The only tool I needed for the repair that wasn't in my tool box was a small bearing puller, easily available at my local NAPA car parts store. I think the new part lasted about 2 years and then it finally succumbed to over-heating and fatigue/tearing, then failed.

One day, I was perusing my email and saw a story about 3-D engineering that took old broken or no longer available parts and with the aide of lasers made a whole new part out of plastic. I contacted a plastic engineering company near my home and we had a very nice talk. The engineer's child's day car was close to my home, so he stopped by to see the broken part and how it worked in the chair. I told him there were probably several thousand of these chairs around the country that suffered from the same problem as my chair. His interest grew.

The fellow took the part with him and called a few days later with a quote. It was understandably high, a couple hundred bucks, as it was one off and he was including all the nooks and crannies that the original part had. I asked him if he made the part out of one solid block with all the holes in the right places, if that would actually make it much stronger, and if it would be cheaper?...his reply was, "MUCH stronger, and, less expensive". Also, the piece would be made out of much better material. I think the part that I finally got was something close to delrin, a very high load capable and heat resistant material. Delrin ball bearings are used in non-lubricated situations such as roller reefing rigs for sailboats. The pressures are serious in that situation and there is no lubricant. Anyway, there are other materials that are equally fit for this application. I think what I got was something that was a useful bit left over from another job. The material was more than adequate, as the part is still working just fine.

The reason I wanted to finally discuss this is that I am thinking there are others out there with the same problem and just need a simple part to get their chair operating again. After an exhausting/exhaustive search of the internet I could find no trace of the original Takemi company or the manufacturers of the chair. There are, by the way, hundreds of Chinese manufacturers of massage chairs...or, at least there were when I last did a google search. By the way, the chair has done wonders for my back. But when it was in-operable, I was in a lot of pain. Paid for itself the second year, in terms of savings on massages.

I have attached pictures of the broken part and where it is located, as well as a side-by-side photo of the old part and the new. Everything was working just fine and then all of a sudden one of the smaller nylon rollers, I believe the right one (from a sitting position in the chair) went all floppy. It is such a simple fix that anyone with basic fix-it abilities and regular screw drivers, wrench, small bearing puller and the new part, can get this going again in about an hour or two or even less, depending on how many times one has had the back off of the chair. There are four joint nylon parts inside that operate the massage rollers...two large and two small...that could be cause for failure. In my chair it was the smaller right one that kept failing.

Edited 12/6/15
The company I had make my part has grown to such a large size they cannot take the time to make small batches of these parts. They made several sets of 20 and sold them off slowly over five or six years. They did find another shop that offered to make the parts. Two different people ordered a good number of parts and upon notice of shipping, both canceled their orders. Folks, that just isn't a nice thing to do to a company that is simply trying to help people out. The shop owner got mad and threw the parts in the garbage and is no longer interested in making this part.

Have a great new year and hope you can get your massage chair working better than new.

CD Volume 4

Song List
1. Come Monday Morning
2. 1982
3. Could I have This Dance
4. Bye-Bye Love
5. White Sport Coat
6. I Fall To Pieces
7. Houston
8. Statue Of A Fool
9. Roll Over Beethoven
10. Blue Spanish Eyes
11. Hello Mary Lou
12. She Thinks I Still Care
13. From A Jack To A Queen
14. Keeper Of The Stars
15. Oh, Lonesome Me

Album 4 is also a party mix of most requested songs over the years. I hope you enjoy all these fine songs and will think about purchasing these CDs, not only for yourself, but for others you think might enjoy them.

Think about giving these CDs as gifts, especially for the older people in your life. We purchase gifts that are consumable or are gag gifts, often, for more than the cost of one or more of these CDs. A gift of one or even all four volumes will keep on giving day in and day out, for years to come. Wichita wants to “bringing good music to good people”.

Please visit my site at www.wichitacountry.com and have a look around.

Volume 3

Song List
1. Be My Baby Tonight
2. On The Other Hand
3. Tennessee Waltz
4. Don’t Rock The Jukebox
5. Family Tradition
6. Here’s A Quarter Call Someone Who Cares
7. The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’ Any More
8. Welcome To My World
9. Go Johnny Go (AKA Johnny B. Goode)
10. Neon Moon
11. Country Club
12. He’ll Have To Go
13. Dumas Walker
14. Unchained Melody
15. Chattahoochee

Here we go with Album Three. This album was created from requests to put together a party collection of dance tunes in the order one might hear at a club where I am playing. There is a good mix of dance and vocal styles. All of the songs I have recorded are songs that have been requested over the years. There is a good mix of swing, country cha-cha, waltz, ballad, and rock-a-billy styles. Please check out samples of songs at my website www.wichitacountry.com (Listen).

These songs bring back such great memories. Performing these songs has been such a priviledge. Every Wednesday night for 12 years ole Wichita sang for a singles dance at the Vancouver, Wa. Eagles Lodge...the house was always packed. Seems like that's the way it was for thirty of the last forty years. Most of these fine folks were around retirement age, or older, and to watch them dance every song for four hours was something. I'm still not quite at that age, but hope that I can keep up that kind of activity level when I get there. Also, I played at many of the other "Critter" clubs (Eagles, Moose, and Elks Lodges) and public bars/lounges up and down the West Coast for almost 40 years. I know, the math doesn't add up to my age, but started playing clubs when I was young. Had to stay in the kitchen on breaks until I was old enough to grow a beard. Then nobody asked my age. Times change and people coming up have other tastes in music and what they call dancing. It's time to let others have their turn at the stage, but I'm not giving up. "I will find a stage somewhere in the local area to perform". Love you all, thanks for your support over the years and hope you continue to enjoy Wichita's CDs.

Song List
1. Crazy Arms
2. Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain
3. Faded Love
4. Always On My Mind
5. Luckenbach Texas
6. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
7. Seven Spanish Angels
8. Good Hearted Woman
9. Forgiving You Was Easy
10. Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys
11. Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground
12. Poncho And Lefty
13. Stardust
14. On The Road Again
15. The Party’s Over

Somewhere along the line, I think in the late ‘70s, people started telling me I sounded a lot like Willie Nelson…at least on some of his songs. In the mid-'80s I entered a Willie sound alike contest at Jubitz Truck Stop in Portland, Oregon. KWJJ also sponsoring a birthday party for Willie, there. Several people got up on the stage and sang, but none really sounded like Willie. Then it was my turn. I started singing and everybody stopped talking and the dancers stopped dancing. I thought they were going to kick me out of the place, but the show’s MC said; “I think they want you to sing some more.”… sooo I did. I got a lot of nice prizes and a boost to the ego. Anyway, over the years, I’ve sung most of Willie’s songs. The above listed, on the album, are most requested. Again, check out the Samples...www.wichitacountry.com. Thanks.

Something about my Albums

Volume I includes some of my all time favorite songs. It is what I call “Industrial Strength” Country Music. There are, of course, other great country songs and they follow in the other Volumes. This particular collection was my first “live” recording so I’m particularly partial to it. Hope you enjoy these great songs as much as I do. I went a little overboard with 19 songs, and the licensing is expensive, but I wanted a CD that expressed my thoughts on Honky Tonk music and took one back to a time when country music artists were anything but generic. “Enjoy”

PS. I’ve put samples in my website http://www.wichitacountry.com/ (Listen) to give you a taste of the CDs.

PSS. Wanted to mention that Wichita had the privilege performing some of these songs as part of opening act for Tammy Wynette, at the Clark Country Fair one summer. The bleachers and infield were pacted....12 - 15 thousand people. Anyway, we started up on Six Days On The Road, doing a sort of Country Rock arrangement of mine and the crowd went nuts. We feared a stampeed for the stage, but kept playing. Tammy Wynette's band came out from the mainstage dressing room and stood in front of the stage and watched. We did an extra verse and instrumental and ended. Wichita's ex-wife was in the audience and said the crowd really liked the song. The applause went on and on. Two of the people in that band are no longer with us, the drummer and the pedal steel player...huge loss to the music community. Our band also performed many of the songs on this CD at the 4th of July Fireworks show at the Vancouver, Wa., main stage, in the early '80s. Crowds at that time averaged between 40 - 50 thousand people. The Vancouver Fireworks have been the largest 4th of July display, West of the Mississippi River, for decades. What a thrill to play for a sea of enthusiastic faces.

Have been teaching and/or performing many instruments and genre for fifty-two years. That's a bunch when you start at four or five years old. Following a successful classical music career, I moved back home and found myself starving. Teaching helped fill the time void, but Country Music put me back on my financial feet.

At some point, I guess wanting to rebel from a musical family, I wanted to be a Mechanic. Worked with an Alfa Romeo team mechanic for a while and opened my own sports car shop...."Maestro's". Mechanic's knowledge came in handy later delivering boats. Nothing like breaking down on the ocean at 3:00 AM with clogged fuel lines or hydraulic fluid leak.

Somewhere in there, I took a fancy to motorcycles, with the help of a good friend, I learned to ride and not kill myself. Put 80, 000 miles on a Honda 350 Scrambler and 20,000 miles on a Gold Wing. This brings me to a point, in the early '80s, where my motorcycle riding friend brought his Goldwing and new homemade sidecar by for a test drive. It was raining, but we went anyway. As we were heading for a major intersection, we realized that the unit was not going to stop. It was raining and it just wasn't possible to grip the front brake hard enough to displace the water and cause enough friction to bring the extra weight of the side car, to a halt. We went through the red light, unscathed.

As sometimes happens, necessity, adreinaline, and/or fear of death are/is the mother of invention, so I suggested that my friend drill some holes in the rotors to give the water someplace to drain to, plus the edges of the holes would scrape the pads dry. Being a machinist, my friend did this and the bike stopped on cue. Being a good friend, my friend said he would give me 50% of the profits from the patent and any money that was made from this idea. Unfortunately, my friend said that sometime afterward, before he could get anything off the ground with the idea, a BMW motorcycle shipment to his motorcycle shop included disc brake rotors with holes in them. So much for retiring to Hawaii. If anybody knows how BMW developed the idea of putting holes in their brake rotors or where they got the idea from, I'd be interested in knowing. This brings me back to selling my CDs.

Advancements in computers helped me to be able to record many songs that were continually requested over the years. In 2002, I recorded my first CD, Echoes Of A Honky Tonk Vol. I. Sales, one at a time quickly paid for all the costs of production and Licensing, so I recorded Vol. 2, a "Tribute To Willie Nelson" a year later. That album had similar success, and so on, until I had four CD Albums recorded Licensed and paid for.

There isn't much market for playing country swing in the NW, where I live, so I've been judging Karaoke contests (will save Karaoke in Hawaii for another entry). First prize has been really huge with 1st place prizes ranging from $500-1000 dollars. The finals have been really great. Getting to listen to so many wonderfully talented people has been a real pleasure.

That's about it for today, My Eyes feel like two friend eggs.
Cheers,
Wichita