alex_holden

Hi Dave, have you (or anyone else reading this) any experience of making a claim through Secursus? I just quickly skimmed their T&Cs; here are a couple of things that jumped out at me that their insurance does not cover: "scratches, scuffs, deformation, and other cosmetic damage." So if the parcel gets used as a football in the sorting office and some parts of the instrument get bent, are they going to argue that they don't cover cosmetic damage? "losses or damages on Packages that were received without signature or that were received with a non-conforming signature." This is a bit worrying because I have had a situation where the UPS delivery guy left the parcel out somewhere stupid (where it could easily have been stolen by a passerby) and forged the recipient's signature on the delivery note. Also, the insurance policy only lasts 14 days, so what happens if it gets held up in customs for three weeks and then the courier smashes/loses it?

@pentaprism said he prefers "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS", which you called, "the American way, which is obviously wrong." I replied that it is actually a variant of the International standard ISO 8601. UPS's format is the one that is confusing and ambiguous.

I think it's just an illusion, white light reflecting off the polished wood.

They are holding it wrong?

Not always, but in this case I believe it's a good standard that would greatly reduce date-related confusion if everyone adopted it.

It's actually one of the variants of the international standard date format (ISO 8601).

I may have the wrong end of the stick here, but I thought that complaint had to do with the previous owner of the Stagi brand, not the current owners.

International shipping can be a nightmare.

AFAIK the Hayden/Wikki system is only easy to play in a wide range of keys if the instrument has a wide enough keyboard to avoid breaking the pattern, which quickly gets into large/expensive/rare instrument territory.

More so if they are clamped to the same metal plate, as with some of the earlier examples in this topic.

Wow, on the second page of that topic there are photos of a fascinating Wheatstone English from 1920 with double-tongue reed frames.

Do you have a picture/drawing of how that works? Where does the baffle go?

That's very interesting, thanks Stephen.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Accordion_button_mechanism.svg#/media/File:Accordion_button_mechanism.svg

Yes, but my understanding is that melodeons/accordions have two (or more) separate chambers opened by one shared pallet rather than placing all the reeds in a single chamber. Is that just because it's easier to build/tune, or would the reeds actually behave differently if they weren't separated by a dividing wall?