d.elliott

Those valves would be redundant, and may cause some air flow resistance, but minimal (assuming they are good valves)

If you want to try this out then use a couple of the low notes valves on each side in place and working, these will act as internal 'gulper' valves. all you need to do is remove the chamber side reeds and tape over their reed vents. I don't think you will gain much in volume, but definitely in weight loss (most of use want that- certainly according to my wife). The main benefit will be responsivness in play. My own bass has a single internal gulper port & valve about 30mm in dia. Picking up on Alex last comment, for me this would be an experiment, or at most a step on the path towards getting a proper SA instrument with it's much bigger reeds. Any such mods would need to be reversible. Please also consider that many of the DA Basses have relatively shorter reeds with weighted tips, all of which have an impact on responsivness.

looks like a basic Wheatstone, with spruce baffles and only four fold bellows. It shows none of the hallmark features of a middle or upper grade model. It looks as it it is relatively early. This 'tina will probably have brass reeds, you could potentially pick one up in the UK for less than £600.00.

I now have a single action bass, and a single action baritone. I sold my double action baritone to get the SA version. The lag in closing one valve to open another on a small reed instrument instrument is acceptable, but on a big reed instrument not only are the areas of leather so much greater, if add the effect of the heavier leather plus again the size & weight of the reed and it all becomes bit like a plumb pudding to play. The longer and heavier valves tend to stand off the reed pan more, especially the non-chamber side of the reed pan. Remove the valves and all that (except the reed size) goes away. My Wheatstone SA baritone is comparable in responsiveness with my either of my. Wheatstone trebles. I would never revert back to a DA baritone, having aid all that you can make terrific improvements in playability and responsivness on DA big reed instruments by judicious choices of valve leathers combined with valve springs. it can be a bit of an art form but so well worth the effort. I would always advise optimising what you have before spending lots of dosh on replacement.

The action pivot pots are definitely Jones.

don't forget that the end wrap on the bellows frame laps over the the chamois on the bellows frame 'end' where it seals against the pad board. this is only by a mm or so, but cosmetically it makes one hell of a difference.

one picture is metal ended.

Some years ago we had a healthy debate about tuning tolerances, this based upon audiology data, and various other factors, I (we?) settled on +/- 1.5 cents from nominal, and the use of a meter that could discriminate to no courser than 0.05 of a cent. Some repairers did not want to engage in the discussion, some players active on the forum at the time took the view that ascribing tolerances was just lazy craftsmanship, one chap demanded nothing better than absolute perfection. The reality is that there is no such thing as perfection. we knew what the trained ear could discriminate, and what would cause a clash to that ear if two instruments tuned at different ends of the tolerance band were played in juxtaposition. Experience repairers know what level of repeatability is sensibly attainable in the tuning process. Theo's point is exactly right if you are counting to portions of a cent, you need a read out that is more precise than that portion. If you want to be able to trust that reading then the instrument must be able to discriminate (if not read out) to around 0.2 times the read increments, of finer.

This is interesting, if you look at a curve of serial numbers against dates you can see the production rates climbing with a steepening gradient from around 1906, and the production rate is increasing at almost an exponential rate up to 1928. I would have expected that the curve would have been flattening, and even declining at this point in time. It seems quite counter intuitive.

What is as, if not more important is consistent spacing, and orientation relative the holding furniture.

Best part about retirement is lying in bed listening to other people scrape the ice off their cars in an effort to get to work on time!

Often the key's guide pin has snapped off, or if the key is riding higher than the others, the pivot post may have worked loose.

It's a bit of a bugger to empty the dirt from the bellows though.

West Country Concertina players run two residential weekends, one for beginner/ early improvers and one for later improver & the more experienced players.

The dull ends are usually nickel/ nickel plated, Stainless (originally 'rustless' steel') was not invented until 1913. so I doubt it was available for concertina ends until well after the 1st WW. Chrome plating was leading this by about 10 years. Nickel plating, however, started to appear in the 1850's. Chrome plate is in two forms: Hard Plating for wear surfaces and decorative plate. Chrome is much brighter and shinier than nickel, but it can peel off. Nickel can give an allergic reaction so don't cuddle your 'tina, unless she is a Tina!