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Thanks Little John. I appreciate the tongue length comparisons. Very nice. Your Wheatstone and #4Bass have the best curves. Are the tongue width and thickness curves just as nice? Wheatstone appears to start out with a fixed set of reed frame sizes (tongue length / width) and tongue material thicknesses then adjusts the profile of the reed tongue to get the right response and pitch. Curves and workmanship varies. i am trying to figure out why Wheatstone 31xxx concertinas sound so good through all this. I measured up two 31xxx tenor trebles which are both stellar concertinas. The amboyna TT is the best and just amazing when I play it. Why??? It draws me in and is so pleasant to play as a musical instrument. Amazing expression and dynamics. I can easily play music on it that I fumble through on other ones. All the reed curves are near perfect as well as the tongue gaps but I think it was Steve Dickinson’s voicing and air flow adjustments that really made the biggest difference. It is also super clean and well taken care of which helps. I don’t think the tooling was new on these instruments as some say but it may be the tongue material as others say but I really think it is most likely the quality of workmanship. My 1856 Emily Bulteel Wheatstone and the 1942 rare war era Aeola I once had have near perfect workmanship as well even though the curves are a bit off and it also shows by how they play and sound. Both are basically unrestored except for tuning and the 1942 has untouched A440 factory tuning I still miss that 1942 Aeola treble but it went to a great player.

Thanks Little John. That’s interesting. Tell me more about the Crabb concertina? Any photos of it? How does the instrument sound? I would like to know more about this concertina please. I’ll add the tongue length measurements. I’ve been measuring: - Frame length - Frame max width at clamp - Frame thickness - Slot length - Slot width tip - Slot width at clamp - Tongue width tip - Tongue width clamp - Tongue material thickness - Tongue thickness tip - Tongue thickness clamp - Tongue thickness middle (est) - Etc. I’ve now measured an Aeola G bass, BT, TT, Treble, ET, piccolo and a few more in between including my prize golden era amboyna tenor treble. I measured up the reeds from an amazing 1856 12 guinea early treble that Emily Bulteel had and a decent 1930 treble with “medium” or “best” reeds to get the short and medium scaling data. All of these are in spread sheets now and it is extremely interesting to see the different graphs the spread sheets generate. I’ll try to take some photos and at least attach an example. if the graph curves are perfect, that’s the design. If the gaps are perfect that’s the quality of workmanship. The ultimate is to have both. Non of my measurements take into account the voicing of course which is just as important. A reed with good voicing will react and sound much better than a reed with perfect gaps and scaling. And there is also chamber sizing, button travel / air flow adjustments, etc. Voicing is an art! I’m very busy all of a sudden so haven’t had a chance to process all the data like I would like. I want to build some more spread sheets that compare all the numbers from the instruments combined to see the similarities. It’s been a very educational project and just handling all those hundreds of reeds has given amazing insights. On a few instruments, I also measured the wood and other parts such such as pads / pad holes / slot vent lengths, etc. just to see what the graph curves would look like. What would these early Wheatstone employees think if they could see these spread sheet graphs? Has anyone else done this? I would love to compare results. .

Does anyone have experience with Wheatstone reed scaling?

Thanks Takayuki YAGI. http://www.concertina.com/duett/wheatstone-duett-no-64/index.htm Interesting instrument.

Just curious... What is this? Charles Wheatstone Concertina Anglo Silver Plate Buttons Antique Instrument

Photo of three treble C4 reeds attached. All three reeds are C4 pitch. Frame lengths: 1926 Aeola 1.503” / 38.18mm 1930 RE M4 1.427” / 36.25mm 1856 12.12 1.320” / 33.53 mm Is this Long, Best, Regular reed scales? .

The question about Wheatstone reed scaling has come up again. I understand Wheatstone only used 3 reed scales over the years: Long, Best and Regular??? I’m converting a 5-1/2” 48 key piccolo English Aeola concertina into a treble, building new reed pans. This has been done before. I have detailed photos of a factory made 5-1/2” treble and also 5-1/2” piccolo that was later sent back to Wheatstone and converted into a treble by them. Thank you Robert and Bob for your generous help. Is it true that Wheatstone only had three distinct reed scales? Info or charts on Wheatstone reed frame sizes / tongue sizes, etc. for each pitch would be most welcome to help me figure out what they used and then source some reeds. .

Wow! Nice find. Enjoy!

I'm a big fan of Amboyna Buryl with ebony trim, dark brown bellows and gold hardware... just my preference. As Alex said, all wood ends should be laminated for structural stability. The Wheatstone Aeola came in ebony / ebonized, chrome, nickel plated nickel-silver, gold plated brass, amboyna, natural / plastic tortoiseshell and white eirinod. Rosewood is nice too. Am I missing any?

Thanks Alex. Awesome info. I was trying to figure this out a while back. Very good.

Alex, Could you share your two temperament tables for a 14 note per octave English concertina please. Are they custom TE tuner tables? I would highly value your thoughts on how you tune the EC enharmonics. 8 good keys with quarter comma mean tone? The resonance of the chamber is designed to be different than the frequency of the reed so unwanted harsh harmonics are cancelled and responsiveness is increased. This interaction causes the reed to sound at a slightly different frequency installed versus when on the tuning table. The chamber volumes are slightly different on push and pull so the tuning of push and pull reeds needs to be slightly different and can’t be mixed up. I recently discovered Total Energy tuner in my struggle to tune some bass reeds. It works! Therefore I highly recommend it. I am actually completely hooked on it now. I love the temperament feature and the analyzer works just as good as Celemony Melodine for my uses.

Hi Sparrow, Would you consider a 72 button McCann? 1919 Wheatstone Aeola, F2 to C7. A440. I only play English but just had to purchased it because it was local and on the same ledger page as my Tenor Treble. PM me if interested.

Columbia leather sent me their price list. I am going to put an order together to make valves from the smallest piccolo size to large contrabass size and also will order leather for pads. I have never ordered leather for these two items before and could use some advice to save the costly mistakes I’ve so often made in the past. I need help in determining what to order. They do have CPL (Columbua Pneumatic Leather) in sizes from XXX thin .005 - .007 to Extra Heavy .022 - .026 in 6” x 12” strips. Wheatstone has 6 different valve sizes I was told. Not sure what thickness range. Is CPL the ideal leather for pads as well as valves?

Are you putting veneer on the existing case or building a new one? PM me if you need some original hex case hardware. I have lots of it. 😄

The most important details in the description are bass / baritone / treble / piccolo so you know where the middle C button is... piccolo plays an octave higher, baritone an octave lower and G Bass, two octaves lower (and C1 contrabass 3 octaves lower if it exists) as related to the treble all with 48 buttons. The second most important thing is the location of the thumb straps in connection with the C button on the LH side but this is never described. There is always going to be a compromise with the terminology (such as calling a “tenor” a “tenor treble” and back and forth) because some follow the modern descriptions and some refer to the Ledgers / price lists descriptions. For a bit of trivia… My model 15 really messes people up. I am careful to call it a baritone treble (not a treble baritone) as the middle C is in the traditional treble position as a treble on the LH side. This baritone ranged Aeola goes down a 4th lower than a tenor treble, 4 octaves from G to G with the same 56 buttons. However, I would not describe it as taking a row off the top and adding one on the bottom as the layout is completely different. I’ll attach a couple of photos to show my point. The fingering pattern looks to be completely opposite but you don’t notice this while playing it and find it similar to a TT with extra low notes. I find having the middle C still on the LH side much more intuitive than the reversed baritone. Note the layout with reference to the pinky slides / thumb straps. It took me a while to wrap my head around this one. 56 button, Model 19, C to C, Tenor Treble: 56 button, Model 14, G to G, Baritone Treble: .

You can purchase a small inexpensive ozone machine on Amazon that charges from a USB port. I find these very helpful for freshening up a bellows with an old musty smell.

I would like to preserve the wood in it’s original condition as much as possible. I could wrap and twist a piece of copper wire around the base of the cap for the electrical connection. I think the dual wall adhesive lined shrink tube is the best idea so far. I’ve had to peel this off of electrical connections many times and it sticks but always comes off clean. I’ve never used it on wood but it should be fine. Thanks for all the advice.

Thanks Adrian. I never thought of shrink tube. I have some of the double wall type with a sticky inside glue layer. You can pinch the open end closed and it should seal. Awesome idea. I’ll try it. .

Thanks Theo. Good idea. Silicone caps are available to cover bolt threads, etc. while electroplating. I guess I could just tape them up tight but was wondering if there is a product like a thick plastic or maybe wax I could dip the wood in and easily peel off later.

A 48 button set of wooden core gold plated Aeola buttons needs to be freshened up. The plan is to electro clean, rinse, activate, rinse, electroplate a nickel diffusion barrier all by full immersion in heated baths and then brush plate on about 5 microns of cobalt hardened bright 24K gold with a wand. The wooden cores are the problem. The metal caps are crimped on hard so can’t be removed. The wood needs to be sealed somehow so I can do the rinses properly to avoid cross contamination of the baths. Any ideas? The ends, pinky slides, thumb strap screws and loops were gold plated today and originally I was going to leave it at this but decided the end bolts and buttons, little and long screw ends. This amazing one of a kind piccolo deserves the love 😍

I just updated mine... 5-1/2" gold ended piccolo Aeola on top and 11-1/2" double action G bass Aeola on the bottom. One of a kind Wheatstones. Thought it was an interesting photo.

Thanks Alex. Good idea! Stainless steel shim stock. Do you have any photos? How did you attach them?

Thanks Chris. I sent Darlene an email a few days ago but never pursued it. I’ve been a bit distracted. I just received an amazing little gold ended piccolo EC and can’t set it down even though unrestored and in lower A435 French pitch. I’ve been playing Bach’s Little fugue in G minor on it or at least learning it. Simply amazing instrument! So much fun. I’ll pursue the pneumatic leather early next week and let everyone know. Hopefully they will sell me some smaller quantities so I can try making valves in assorted thicknesses to sort out the lower notes of my tenor treble. I was just tweaking my double action Aeola G Bass last night and noticed some valves have one and sometimes two layers of a reinforcement mylar laminated on top of the leather to reinforce them. Brilliant idea. Lower notes sound full rounded, rich and powerful, no pops or blurps at all. I’ll attach a photo hopefully tomorrow. I may try this out on my TT and see if it helps. Thanks again for everyone’s help. .

I emailed TonalEnergy… I will let you know what they say. Here’s an Interesting YouTube video I just found while cruising their website... good demonstration of Just vs. ET. Shameless promotion for their app of course (nice grin) but good demo. I have absolutely no connection with these guys; I just found out about them about a week ago and have been raving about their ap ever since. Just found out they also have an Apple/Windows version as well. .

The reference note can be changed but I usually leave A4 at 440Hz as a reference to tune to other instruments. Interesting… I will email them and see what they say. It is easy to modify the offset table or even create a new User temperament. I learned to count beats when I tuned pianos many years ago but now just use a “computer” tuner. Sad but true. 😭 I will try your suggestions and listen to them. The ap has a function to do this. What would you suggest for the enharmonics Eb/D# and Ab/G# in cents? I have a piccolo English coming today or tomorrow that’s in original C517.3 / A435 Continental pitch that needs to be raised slightly and may just do it in 1/4 comma meantone for fun. Thanks. . I