Marien

If the plastic is from 1960, it may be of inferior quality. Delrin sounds to be very suitable, seems to be used for prothesis as well.

I didn't think about the total weight of the concertina, more about the mass of the action and the ease of playing ornamentation and in fast tunes. There may be a weight balance between pad and button, but the mass of the whole action may have an effect. When it is heavy it needs more power to press the button fast, at least, I was asking myself whether this would make a difference or would you say that it's insignificant?

Whisper words of wisdom....

Also quite close may be the Parma Typewriter NB font.

5 guitars, hmmm, could there be someone out there who wants to exchange a Rochelle for a guitar?

I have seen concertina's with metal buttons, glass, bone, plastic, wood with a metal cap or a bone or ivory top. To me, for its low weight, the wooden button with the metal cap is the most attrective one of these. But I heard that they (rarely) can brake where the lever goes through. What I have never seen is buttons made out of carbon with a metal cap. Like for badminton rackets, it would combine low weight with strength, and carbon seems to be more solid than wood. Could that be the material for our future concertina button? Or is there a concertina maker who already uses it?

Let's call it the famous Lachenal font. But I think they did not use a type writer. If you look at the lachenal 20b concertina on Theo's site: http://theogibb.co.uk/old_site/instruments...enal199390L.jpg then I would say that the numbers are stamped, although I remember that old type writers often did not print letters on the same level. Is there anyone who knows more about the way Lachenal printed the numbers? If somebody would have a good picture of all 10 numbers then it may be quite easy to a graphic designer to tell the name of the font, or search it in a book. If the font is not somewhere on the shelf then it is possible to make a computer font out of it. By the way, this question suggests that somebody wants to restore the numbered seal. As for one of my lachenals, it misses the lachenal label (who cares). Once I thought to put a new old label in. But if I would, what kind of paper and ink would lachenal have used? At some point there were more of these questions and it made me decide to (thanks for the words Dirge) let it be.

I would steer clear of anyone who uses a concertina as a club. Or a Secret Society? Al or a school for scam scumbags Marien

Like the others already told, the Rochelle seems a good choice to begin with, the action looks much better to me than the one on the hohners that I have seen. If you have enough money, you could also by a lachenal or even something more expensive like a crabb, a wheatstone or a jeffries. They will keep their value (won't they?).

If I remember well there was a similar rosewood lachenal 30b that went for £1800 about a month ago. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the mid 70s for just one day... or even better, to 1910 to by me a new top end concertina.

Just saw it on ebay, it looks good. It is a private listing. Anyone seen this concertina before? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Concertina-very-old_...1QQcmdZViewItem

Superglue holds perfectly on repaired cracks in guitar tops and sides, it also commonly used to repair cracks in black wooden flutes (although these crack repairs in flutes suffer more from breathtaking moistness) so why wouldn't it work for concertina's? I agree that the glue is quite aggressive and not very healthy to inhale, but to avoid getting it everywhere on the instrument I cover the surroundings first with tape. Also I agree that it it is more work to get it flat if you put on too much, but if you put in much dust, and do not make high mountains, that will be hardly a problem. I agree that putting fresh wood could be nicer if the wood structure shows a certain pattern, and you can find a chip that at the end shows the same pattern of the wood, mostly you will see a little colour difference anyhow. Solving dust in a glue will not bring you a wood structure, but I think that this handle is quite plane in one colour.

I assume that you are talking about a C/G concertina. Irish music uses the notes of the D and G major scales, but tunes in other scales do exist in Irish music and many Scottish and Shetland tunes are played in A. When I play Irish, It is very rare that I touch the 2 lowest notes on the outer row left, and also it is very rare that I touch the highest 2 notes on the outer row of the right hand side. Still I use the 4th button left on the outer row for a low A sometimes (mostly for other than Irish music). On the middle row I use all the buttons. This also counts for the inside rows, although I do not touch the highest and the lowest note in many tunes. I once had a 26b anglo and then I missed the 4th button on the outer left row (but not for Irish). I turned it into a 28 button with some spares, and now when I play it, I never miss the 5th button on the left hand side, and I very rarely miss the highest notes on the right hand side (again, would not miss it for Irish). As for a complete key layout, I would miss the lowest notes on the inner 2 rows left. If you reshuffle the whole key layout, which notes do you need extra for Irish on the three buttons? I guess that there may be concertina makers that will build a special concertina for a reshuffled key layout, if you ask them, but I guess that it would not be a standard model, so you may have to wait a little longer before you will have it, and pay some more for it...

by the way, when you add the glue with the dust, take care to clean out the crater, for example, sand it just that little bit to let the fresh wood appear in the day light. The glue will hold better on the clean wood.

I prefer super glue above pva as it is string and it dries out harder and you can treat it as wood afterwards. The only thing is that (like with PVA and other glues) the resulting colour will be a little bit darker than the bare wood dust, so I would use a lighter coloured wood for making the dust, and check in advance on an other piece of mahogany if the result matches the colour of the handle. It is relatively easy to make the result a little darker with a coloured varnish, but making it lighter is more complicated.

For super glue adicts this is the popular method. Find yourself a similar coloured (or a little lighter) piece of the same wood type (old mahogany). Do some sanding on a clean piece of wood and keep the wood dust. Tape the space around where the chip is missing. Then put a drop of super glue on the missing chip part of the handle and put some dust on it, it will be soaked into the super glue and wait until dry. Afterwards, repeat until the dried glue is "above the surface". Then at first, use sanding paper to flatten the new dried mountain of super glue and wood dust. After that, remove the tape and use a sharp scraper to egalise the surface. After that the whole handle might need a new finish. Maybe a good idea to test on another piece of wood how the colour is coming out first (incl. finish).

Maybe this was just an exercise in a scumbag training class... By the way, misspelling is not the same as swindle.

Watch it. This is a scam (for sure). http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/vintage-concertinasq...1QQcmdZViewItem It is the same as this one: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6031

I don't know the actual key layout. The grouping of the buttons remind me of a bandoneon, but it may be another instrument as well. I don't think that it is fraud, but I don't know the actual quality of the box, so I would not bid without better information from the seller. ML

That's my intention to take concertina to genres, other than the ones, where concertina was widely adapted. Whether or not I will be successful is to be seen. It is not guaranteed. Yes, playing Cajun accordion in Cajun style is more forgiving, than playing Eastern European music. Playing an Irish Jig on Anglo Concertina is more forgiving than French Bouree. There is a reason for German Concertina been adapted in Irish tradition and not German, German Bandoneon been adapted in Argentina and not Russia and Austria. I see aggressive honk of English made high end Concertina standing out in Cajun band as objectionalbe, and lesser quality been too week and thin. Italian Tarantella needs Oompa and MMM tuning, pretty wet. I only once heard Bouree on AC well done, by a professional. To insert unusual or historically rejected instrument into an established tradition is interesting, but riskey. That's why probably 70% of this forum consists of people who like Irish, some 20%, who like English, and the tiny rest, who dares to apply concertina to other genres. As one of my collegues at work said after I played Yiddish tune (Pripechek) on Morse Albion: "A concertina is Electric Guitar of Accordions", because of it's aggressive cutting tone. To deal with this quality is a major undertaking in genres, where this aggrressiveness is not asked for. To me, EC applied to Classical Music is a mind twister. It's very interesting to watch Youtube in this respect. After watching a tune on EC, you usually can watch the same tune, played on other instruments. Mostly other instruments sound better. Probably because Classical Music was written without Concertina in mind. Or because Concertina playing school generally is weaker, than piano, guitar and violin. Or perhabs the Complexity/difficulty/sound ratio is not optimal. The best compliment I heard so far was "Cute". I take it. Hmm.. maybe this is the wrong topic. To my opinion the tarantella, in the italian tradition, does not need an accordion at all. It's dancing music, many yimes a song with a steady beat on a drum. The used instruments for it are harps, lutes or bag pipes. That the melody of some tarantella's have been picked up by wetly tuned italion accordeons in the streets of Napoli and Paris is fine to me, but it does not convince me that a tarantella would not sound on a concertina, that it is not in the italian tradition seems to be related to the fact that they just did not have concertina's in Italy. Also for other musical traditions that do not use the concertina. I agree that there are tunes that are more or less suitable for a concertina, but I dont think that suitability has anything to do with regional differences in folk music.

I agree that concertina is a demanding instrument, but I don´t understand why for irish and boer music playing delicately would be less important. Do you mean that for italian tarantella´s, french bourrees, greek rembetico songs or themes of a computer game on the concertina should be played more delicately than for irish or boer music? True that other music than Irish and Boer do not have a huge concertina tradition, but to me this is just the thing that makes it interesting to try out different styles on a concertina and do something else as everybody does. I can imagine concertina would be great in a Cajun band, playing wild melodies. I don't mean just white noise. Also when playing loud and fast, the music should be played delicate. Like for all instruments, there are more ways to produce sound with it and I think it is good to do experiments, monitor my play and perhaps revise my way of playing. I think the taste of the player should decide what music to play. If it does not fit in a tradition, no problem to me as long as the audience likes to hear the music.

If you check you will notice that the vic227 does not offer the same instrument twice. Different wheatstones offered may be restored the same way and they may look identical, but they are different. I remember somebody else used one of his listings for a scam, but as far as I know this seller is very reliable (check the ebay profile). Maybe some of these wheatstones are relatively new and if I was interested in bidding I would ask for pictures of the reed pans.

zero folds heavy metal bellows

O yes it has reeds, and it really plays a chord. Check the pictures...

It is here, It is not cheap, but who would expect that with metal ends. Check out the pictures of the reeds. Could this be english make? http://cgi.ebay.com/Jacob-Concertina-rare-...1QQcmdZViewItem