d.elliott

John, I think I see where you are coming from, but the heritage aspect did not correlate with humidity, certainly not in my mind anyway. Robert, one of the products of combustion is water, open fires had windows running in water, single glazing being a primitive form of de-humidification. Alex, it is 91% RH outside as I type this and 52% RH in the house. As you are aware wood shrinks with dryness, and glues fail. hence my concern about over de-humidification. I would hazard a guess that in Victorian times the RH would have been anywhere between 60% to 85% in a house, especially where there were large families all members of whom had a tendency to breath out moisture, maybe coupled with alcohol fumes. I certainly do agree that a stability in humidity is a good goal to strive for, and a temperature above dewpoint. Noel, I am sorry to say I did not include humidity protection in the manual, with my client base and my experience at the time it was not an issue to me., sorry.

squeezebox, where about's do you live? I might be worth tracking down some one experience for advice before you dive in. Dave

John, what on earth are you talking about? I am talking about humidity, people are trying to maintain instruments at 45% RH, I am pointing out that the concertinas were made in the UK where the humidity is far higher. Nothing to do with cultural ethnicity. They should probably be be trying for, say, 65% to 80% RH to prevent shrinkage of woods. I am afraid you have left me entirely puzzled, not that puzzlement is difficult to achieve in my situation.

I have had something similar, but not so severe, I used a dowel, or flush cutting saw to remove the 'stuck' chamois leather from between the the pad board and the chamber walls Dave

Surrey Street Music Hall, later Sheffield Public Lending Library, where the 'introduction' took place

I have not spotted how these gel packs work, if the are to keep humanity stable, they need to be able to add and remove moisture. The other thought is that most of the old instruments were made in the UK, our humidity is a lot damper than 45%, 65% is more the norm. Dave

I also use Lark, Lark have various levels of insurance including in a parked car if out of sight etc.

Alex is probably correct, at one time probably half of the instruments I got sent to me were in 'old' pitch A-452Hz, The one I have just finished is from the late 1830's, it is in A=452, and mean tone temperament, and the owner wanted it not only made playable, but retaining it's original tuning. It has taken ages to do, soft brass reeds with the low Ab's to be be down tuned to F nat's by tip weighting. (English system). But it is done now. One you have re-pitched the concertina to A=440Hz, that should be it, but do replace the valves first.

Anything that may leave an oily film should be avoided. I would have thought turpentine would be one of them.

Follow Alex's advice, 400 & 600 grit diamond files, unless brass then I go a grade courser. the fine grits just clog up. Dave

Hi Don, I was trying not to presume on why the OP wanted to carry out this mod. I can understand baffles on a metal ended instrument more than a wooden ended one. However, if you are right, then to try an attenuate the LH side only presumes a baffle fitted into one side only, which wood be odd. As far as I know the red 'paper' backing fitted to Lachenals was a cosmetic feature. If you want the cosmetic/ anti dust feature I use gauze, a trip to the local milliners may be in order, lots of colours to play with. Dave

You can hold the padboard, with the action box cover removed, up to a bright light and look through the pad holes at the pads against the light, it will not test spring pressure but it will identify pad misalignment etc. You can also put a bright LED lamp in the bellows and identify lots of small holes that can add together as the equivalent of a wacking great big hole. If you are unsure about the effect of the warped reedpans, assemble the instrument without them and see what difference it makes. Dave

Hello Chris, I have been sorry to hear about about the tragic fires in Australia, we have the converse in terms of never ending rain, flooding in the lower laying areas of the county. At least you can pump water, and you can clear river ways, as has been done through our village. There is so little that can be done about bush and forest fires when they get hold, especially in your climate. I have tried trailing mics and a contact mic in the past, the best I could have done is use them to confirm a reeds approximate pitch, given tuning tolerance expectations it would not be enough to work on an instrument. Dave

wooden ended instruments dont have bushing boards because the action box end plate or cover is it's own bushing board. On wooden ended instruments it was usual to glue small cork blocks (approx 4 mm x 2 mm x 1,5 mm) around the inside of the action box cover, and around the perimeter of the 'key pad' . this provided a stand off for are flow and an aesthetic benefit overall. They then glued the baffles to the cork blocks.Please do not use foam tapes or barriers. The big question is, why fit baffles to wooden ended instrument? Happy Christmas Dave

The free reed is exited by air flow, experienced tuners know that the pitch changes as the reed excites and then settles to it's playing note. They also know that you can vary the pitch considerably by increasing or reducing air flow on the rig. Sounding a reed by sucking is sort of OK if you can ensure the air flow is consistent and the reed is relativity small, but you need massive lung capacity for the larger reed, even on a treble. If you twang the reed, you are probably starting the reed at a point of amplitude typical of when the reed is being seriously over pressurised, when it would be sounding a bit (a lot) flat in the instrument. The reed's oscillation will quickly decay to nothing. Some electronic tuners will register a note, but you dont know if it is at the flat end of the playing pressure spectrum, or not. Don't forget you are looking for a tuning precision of +/- 3 cents as barely acceptable, and preferably half that to be sure. I don't think that mic sensitivity, clip on or otherwise is the issue. It is the reeds's lack of time at a stabilised frequency of oscillation, when that oscillation is at a playing amplitude. This can only be achieved by airflow, however created. Dave