d.elliott

I have tried many fonts, most of those above, but 'Special Elite in Bold' is the closest I have found. special elite.tiffspecial elite.tiff

The reeds tune up fairly easily, although The reed blocks are held in place with a pair of mini (simple) finger clamps. In each case I have ended up having to ream out the holes in the clamps, to be able to remove and fit the clamps and thus the reed blocks, to replace valves and make tuning adjustments. At least they are not waxed into place! Dave

I have yet another Maiyfair to estimate, I have checked the tuning and found the same discrepency, that makes at least four so far.

Hi Joachim, I am in the middle of servicing a fleet of Mayfair English System instruments for a concertina teacher, I have done several now, and they are excellent instruments, without exception. One thing I have noticed is that their are, without fail, tuned sharp, and that that tuning is variable so say an average of 15 cents, +/- 5 cents. If you are playing for your own amusement, or solo, or perhaps learning then not too much issue. However if you are to play with others then this might to be a problem to you, or others. You might wish to check your tuning. I suspec

The first long series reeds belonged to Lachenal and their Edeophone design, Wheatstone then brought out their Aeola, first the six sided pinhole Aeola, later the octagonal range that became their Aeola standard.

Simon, that is a bleach, not a hand sanitiser, OK for use against bacteria, not viruses. Not good on skin anyway!, use rubber gloves for protection against bleaches. I suppose that after the bleach has dissolved the skin and flesh, there may be damage from the residual bone drumming on the action box cover? 😶

Ah, you are possibly right. What's the collective noun for a group of Alexes? I know it's a Rave of Daves.

My Bass is a 35 key instrument, going up to the 'C' LH side, but not the 'C#'. the F1 is as shown by Steve

I suspect that you will be looking on the accordion reed market or commissioning a set from one of the traditional reed capable manufacturers, you might talk to Alex West. What range are you looking for? many Bass instruments have short key boards, say up to the 'C' LH Side. Single action would be half the cost and make a lighter and more responsive instrument.

All English Thumb straps should be made with padding, they are, in essence, a flattened leather tube assembled around an angle bracket with a strip of linen running through to stop things from stretching. the angle bracket has an additional piece of felt along the base, up the bracket and around the arc of the thumb. I use 2mm felt compressing to 1.5mm thick. Usually you send your old straps so the repairer can use the existing metal work and match lengths etc. This is also good because different manufacturers use different screw hole lay-outs,. Wheatstone and Lachenal are very different, and

Plays well on an English too.

good point Dana.

Little John, I agree that you are looking at an unequal temperament scale. However the bell tuning comparison with respect to free reeds is probably a bit misleading, one being a pulse, decaying, the other being a continuous tone emission. On continuous notes, most players can pick out a 10 cent error, quite a few 5 cents. There was a debate on this forum about tuning tolerances some years ago. Whilst some players were of the opinion that with modern tuning meters, Zero Error through out the instrument from any note's nominal value was the only acceptable deviation. Obv

Some time ago I had some SS caps made to be bonded in place, they work well but they are the wrong sort silver to look at. It will be interesting to see what the cost will be. Dave

Having listened to Bernard's video clip again, it did not seem any lower than my own 'G' Bass concertina. I just got my G Bass out and put up against my main tuning meter, and to my surprise my Bass goes down around 49 Hz on its low G, which is read at 'G1' the down tuned low 'G#' to F Nat is 43.7Hz or 'F1'. I need to eat my Hat. Further reading clearly stated the Octave C0 is call 'Sub-Contra', 'C1' Octave is called 'Contra'. So the 'G' Bass must be what is thought of as a 'Contra Bass'. The 'C Bass' starts at C2 which is above the contra octave. The naming convention is as below