eleyne

Your solution worked, Greg. And the chopstick was exactly the right tool to get those swollen bushings to let the buttons move freely again. The concertina plays like it should. I'm embarrassed that I didn't identify the bushings as the problem myself. I have this tendency to look for complicated solutions to simple problems. Jim: I only spill beer on my fiddle, not my concertina, so I was able to rule out the 'external' causes right away Geoff: Your guess that there was climate-caused shrinking/swelling was a good one, except that the cause was excessive dampness rather than driness. We had one of the wettest winters in Portland's history, which I'm sure is the cause of the bushing problem. Thanks everyone for your help. Concertina.net rocks! Sarah

A problem has popped up with my Dickinson Wheatstone anglo: On the left hand, three of the buttons no longer snap back up briskly after a note is played. Instead, the button returns slowly, letting the reed sound for too long. Initially, only one button was exhibiting the problem, and I thought the trouble might be a weak spring. However, two other buttons quickly developed the same problem. Since one of them is a button I almost never use, I doubt that weak springs could be the explanation. (The buttons all appear to snap back normally when they are pressed after the left side is opened up.) I've looked at my copy of Dave Elliott's book & couldn't find any information pertinent to my problem. Does anyone have any suggestions for what might be wrong? Sarah

My books arrived earlier today. I'm amazed at the depth and breadth of the information, Dan. And the photos!!!! Well done!

Good work needs to be rewarded. I just ordered my copies, too!

The bellows for my Lachenal have never been the best. They only have five folds, which makes me nuts. (The seven folds on my Dickinson Wheatstone have totally spoiled me in that regard.) And the bellows leaks. Not quite as much as they did before I applied liberal amounts of black duct tape, but .... I think some bellows work was done for the previous owner, more than five years ago, but bellows leakage and deterioration became obvious within the first year after i bought the instrument. If I didn't have my other concertina, I don't think I could have gone so long without dealing with the Lachenal bellows problem. Which, luckily, I can do now that today's dreaded car repair bill came in for many hundreds of dollars less than I'd budgeted for. So my question is: Who should I have make the new bellows for my Lachenal? Sarah in Portland

i figure if pam can try to get rid of a battery, i can try to find a charger. i have a sharp MT877, and i believe that the charger has gone bad. what i'm wondering is whether anyone here might have a defunct MT877, with charger, hanging around. we could make a deal sarah cardin

one of the things that isn't generally known about peter bellamy is that he was absolutely fanatical about the rolling stones. in the early 80s, i picked him up in the bay area, and drove him down to santa cruz for the concert i was helping to produce. the very first thing he wanted to know when he got into the car was whether there was anywhere in santa cruz to look for rolling stones bootlegs. he was impressed that i not only knew where to look, but i knew a place that had several bootlegs that peter didn't already have. the point of this story, though, is the sound check before the concert that night. after our sound guy thought he had things ready, peter stepped up on the stage and played the most beautiful, soulful rendition of 'tumbling dice' that you can imagine. we all had chills going up and down our spines ... the sad part is that while we normally had tape rolling during the sound checks, for some reason we didn't have tape ready that night. so peter's 'tumbling dice' only exists in memory. sarah

i have two: Dickinson Wheatsone C/G Anglo, 31 buttons (1998, i think) Lachenal C/G Anglo, 30 buttons, mahogany (c. 1900) sarah

since i ride the puget sound ferries in washington fairly often, playing on a ferry is pretty routine. although playing on the ferry from prince edward island to nova scotia was anything but routine the oddest place i've played was one day in cape breton last year, during the celtic colours festival. it was a rainy day, and i was cranky and not in the mood to drive across the island to hear music. i decided i'd do my wash instead, so i drove down into the town of baddeck ... but given that it was such a miserable day, i figured i might find a session going on somewhere after i got done with the wash. so i put my concertina in the trunk with the laundry. when i got to town, i parked my car, grabbed the laundry, and walked up an alley to get to the laundromat. when i opened the door -- you guessed it -- a guitarist and a fiddler were sitting on one of the tables, having some tunes while they waited for their wash to get done. so i dumped my laundry back on the table, went back to the car, got the concertina out of the trunk, went back to the laundromat & asked if i could play too. later on, the fiddler said she was really surprised when i pulled a concertina out of the case. when i walked in the door carrying it, she'd thought: 'oh how cute. that woman has a case for her detergent.' sarah