Fanie

When I was nine my parents sent me for piano lessons, but after a couple of months the teacher gave up and told my parents that I have no musical ability. I hated the piano, because I was in a boarding house and when my friends were playing outside, I had to sit and practice in front of the piano. Then I found a harmonica and started playing it a year or two later. Later I played bugle and trumpet in military bands. During the Covid 19 lockdown I started collecting instruments and now I am playing Anglo concertina, melodeon, bandoneon, ukulele, banjo, charango and balalaika.

When you glue it together with superglue you can sprinkle a little bit of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) over the glue. The soda enhances the strenght an drying time of the glue.

If you have time to wait for delivery you can order these from Aliexpress: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001307378488.html?spm=a2g0o.order_detail.order_detail_item.7.6e1df19ccmUDGQ

I played harmonica since the age of 12 and later, when I grew up, I played bugle and trumpet in a military band. But here in South Africa the concertina and banjo are king in Boere music and I always wanted to play concertina and banjo. When the Covid 19 lockdown started I decided "now is the time". I ordered one of those cheap red Chinese 20 button Anglo concertinas and a banjo ukulele from China. It took nine months to be delivered. And then it was me and Youtube to learn to play.

Ok, I glued wallnut veneer to the plastic sides. I used contact adhesive. It looks much better.

Thank you Simon

Here it is with aluminium ends. I still need to cover the red plastic sides with wood veneer.

I started working on the plastic concertina. Firstly I removed the set of low reeds and now it sounds very good. Then I made new metal ends for it. I traced some Wheatstone scrolls on 0.9mm aluminium plate and cut it out with a scroll saw. But now it is only flat plates without the raised center. How do you concertina builders bend the sides down to raise the center? Now there is still some red plastic exposed on the sides and I want to glue wood veneer to it. What glue will you recommend for it? Thanks

I decided, instead of raising the pitch by filing the tip of the reeds, to rather lower the pitch by soldering the tip. I cleaned the tips with sandpaper and then melted a small drop of solder on the tip and then I tuned them again by filing with a piece of sandpaper until it has the right pitch. It worked very easy.

Thank you Frank, this is good advice. I will rather solder the tips to lower the pitch than filing them. You are right Malcolm, I cannot think that I have ever played that B. I started filing the A-reed and I am only at Bb and it is already as thin and sharp as a razor blade. I am going to try F#/F# reed. Thanks

Thank you for the help Theo and wunks, I appreciate it. I did experiment a bit with soldering the tips and then tune it, and it seems to work well. Now to make the highest pitch reed on the G-row. It is a B, and my highest accordion reed is A.

Would it be better to select a reed with the higher pitch and then solder the tip of the reed to lower the pitch and then tune it instead of selecting the lower pitch reed and just filing the tip to make the pitch higher?

I want to harvest PA reeds and tune them for a 20 button Anglo. Now, it is easy to tune a C-reed to C/D and E to E/F, etc, but how far can you stretch it for the C/G, G/B, G/D, D/Gb, C/A, E/B, G/E, B/Gb? Is it possible to tune them from a PA reed? Thanks

There is a light in the tunnel: I contacted David Jenkins, the South African Zulu concertina manufacturer and he was very excited to hear about my find. According to David it is hen's teeth. He wanted to trade me for another concertina, but I like the Bastari with the metal ends. So we agreed that I will send him the Zulu-tuned reed blocks and he will send me a set of CG reeds.

I found a beautiful Bastari Model U-8-2-P with metal sides, but when I tried to play it, it seemed that the reeds on the right hand out side and left in side are turned around. Then I played it over the tuner and found the tuning in D# outside and Bb inside. I went to Luke's Anglo Piano page and, low an behold, there it is, a Zulu Squashbox. What a disapointment.

https://www.davidjenkins.co.za/concertina/

The courier delivered the red plastic concertina and it is truely the ugliest concertina I have ever seen. As the seller had told me, there was something shaking inside and it had a missing button. Otherwise it is in very good, almost unused condition. The seller told me she bought it more than 30 years ago with the intension to learn to play, but never got to it. I opened it up and found that one reed block came off and the reeds were all over. The missing button was also inside the one side. So, I cleaned everything up and glued the reed block back in place with super glue. I waxed the reeds back. The buttons had the typical Italian little rubber tube holding the the buttons in place. The rubber tubes were all hard and brittle, so I had to replace them and put everything together again. I was surprised to find it has two sets of reeds, an octave apart. The one set of reeds is very low and the sound is very loud, it almost sounds like a church organ. Maybe one day I can start a project and rebuild it with wooden sides which will look better than the plastic. Or maybe rebuild an old Scholer with this one's reeds. Nobody plays with a plastic concertina. 😏

Thank you Stephen, yes it must be a Stagi Brunner.

I don't have it yet. The courier will probaply deliver it on Tuesday, then I will report back.

Congratulations, that is a great find.

I found this red plastic body Italian cocertina which is over 30 years old. Does anybody know what it is? Thanks

I recently restored an old bandoneon which also had a broken reed. I sent pictures and measurements of the broken reed to Harry Geuns in Belgium and he sent me correct reed tongue. Contact him https://bandoneon-maker.com/

Or you can order new reeds from Harmonikas.cz in the Czech Republic.

Alex, what thickness aluminium plate are you using?

David, I am not sure, but to me it looks like a bandoneon. I recently restored a bandoneon and got a lot of help from Harry Geuns in Belgium. Try him at https://bandoneon-maker.com/ Good luck