d.elliott

Mike Acott has alluded to the fact that the English system runs along the length of the fingers, in nice neat rows, and the Anglo runs around the palm in curves, obviously he is correct. This means that the English system player has to move his hands a little, up an down the keyboard, its not call a finger slide for nothing and thumb straps should be sufficiently loose to permit movement along the keyboard whilst keeping the fingers parallel to the keyboard. All whilst keeping a positive sense of where the fingers are relative to row. This sense of location for an Anglo comes from the thumb hooking around the strap, ditto for Duets, Wrist straps alone don't have that thumb location and positional reference.

iconstab, Raised ends = 'a new model' design, 44 keys would indicate that the lower octave or so of reeds are not radially mounted but are parallel, and of a much larger design than the rest of the range, I always think of these as being a 'band design' giving more volume and punch than a 48k fully radial design. The top end of the 48k range being sacrificed to create sufficient space. 55209 serial would be around 1912/ perhaps early 1913. (based upon research by others)

Don't think so.

I usually take a standard hand strap but cut it to suit the instrument. the adjustment 'tail' being at the little finger end of the strap in this case.

North Yorkshire's Cliff-Land is good enough for me, even if the climate is a bit more iffy.

Possibly, but still played regularly, if not well.

The 'real' Cleveland is in the north east of England, an area of north Yorkshire and was referenced in the 12th Century and when Harald Hardrada of Norway attempted to invade England, for me it's a bit closer to home, the Cleveland I have known from infancy, to be honest I did not realise that the USA had one too. Originally the name meant Cliff-Land. Or so the historians tell us, not that I can remember that far back.

Hi Wes, I got my (new) PC repaired, and have just seen your response above. My Aeola is octagonal, metal ended, no air release valve but the ends are pierced for a lever type release mechanism. My line that I drew used a curve from the end of the 1991 plots to start of the 1910 plots. so I can see how a discrepancy in approximations can occur. Chidley's statement is not exactly absolute. but it is all best guess and best efforts when we are without the missing data.

Hi Frank. Which Cleveland?

Thanks Wes have a family instrument. an Aeola, serial 23182. I had it pegged at 1904 (ish) but this data would suggest around 5 years earlier about 1899. I can understand that the 'scatter' is the result of instruments being batch made or even re-sold/ exchanged etc. but I am intrigued to know what happened in 1866. Equally , no production between 1849 and mid 1851, very strange indeed.

Whilst I don't particularly play Anglo, well just enough to test out repairs etc., I found you review very interesting, and it is really good to see some take the trouble to write a review, to 'stick their head above the parapet' and give others the benefit of their experience. Very well done!

A Couple of thoughts with respect to a magnetic tip weight: The speed that the reed tip is moving at, then stops then starts again twice for each cycle means that the dynamic forces in terms of momentum etc will be very high relative to any magnetic adhesion. when you tune a reed you are often filing off micro milligrams of material, you need a way of ensuring any removable fix can go back to exactly the same place along the length to ensure the weight to centre of reed flex stays constant The reed tongue's side to frame vent's side wall clearance is very tight, any shifting across the reed will cause the reed to stop or shed it's weight. I think that your initial idea of changing out a reed when you need to set up would work best

I would treat the corner blocks as sacrificial, not on the action box cover (fretting) side on the joint but on the pad board side. The issue you face is the preservation of the the casing veneer and it's polish. The more you dance around the issue the more risk you engender. I would remove the corner blocks on the action box side, expecting to have to re-make them. Then I would weaken the 'joint' between the casing walls by brushing with water to try and soften the glue, and the judicious use of a razor saw to cut it out. I would also expect to have to build up any framing soft wood loss.

I would check that the reed tongue is not touching a side of the vent in the wooden reed pan. This can be just the slightest 'kiss', any more contact would stall the reed altogether. Are you losing and pitch? a hint flatter?

The edge moulding would be scribed, not routed. Layers of wood being built up will mean a lot of glue 'edges' which will not hold ebonising and can 'grin' through polish. I would make my inset piece, fit and blend it. Sometimes you can take the piece out and colour it before finally gluing into place. Ebony de-natures after a while, it goes quite friable which can give problems in scraping and blending as the new wood is harder than the old. Your end plates do not look like fruit wood from the photograph.