Alex West

Some of you may have seen this concertina on e-bay ending on the 29th Dec (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390728825186?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2648). I can confirm that it was me that heard the instrument on the 'phone but didn't get the chance to see it (my fault , not any reluctance of the seller). As the seller has said, I'm fairly certain that it's a C/G and in very close to modern pitch having heard a couple of notes. A shame that there are no indications of maker, but at least it confirms that the instrument exists and isn't likely to be a scam! Alex West

DJ Whereabouts in Scotland are you? I'm in West Kilbride (well, mostly) and I might be able to help with part of your dilemma Alex West

Well that just goes to show the risks in trying to be definitive about Mr Jeffries! I've seen a number of bone botton and metal buttoned sub-38 key Jeffries and I'd not seen any metal buttoned ones with mahogany action boards and only one 26 bone buttoned ones with sycamore boards - I also seem to recall Stephen Chambers discussing the bone buttoned mahogany boarded instruments. Ah well - I suspect you're right Ross that the choice of woods might have been more dictated by availability than musical tone choices, but might it also be a date of manufacture clue (just a guess, no facts to support this)?

Sean Jeffries reedpans are sycamore (I've never seen or heard of any that aren't); the action boards for bone buttoned 30 key Jeffries are often (always?) mahogany whereas the metal buttoned ones are sycamore. As for the Jeffries bellows ends, I don't think they are sycamore. The grain pattern doesn't look right for sycamore; I'd say they were a hard pine or deal - either way a softwood rather than a hardwood. I've seen a Dipper with a multi-ply reedpan - certainly greater stability for humidity and temperature fluctuations than even quarter sawn sycamore Alex West

Ross, There are other threads here that deal with bone, its properties and cleaning carefully without damaging integrity. Unless you clean with over-harsh chemicals, I wouldn't be too worried about bone structure. Old Nickilby, I'm not Scottish (I just live there), but I still try not to overpay. I don't know where the £1.80 per button and the £2.50 postage came from but according to sandylaneman's site, postage is free. at €14.00=£11.65, that's £2.33 per button - which is still 17p cheaper per button than someone else charges, not including postage charge of £2.50 for a small order. If I only need a few buttons maybe you'll sell me some for less (or even give them to me?) or are you trying to hoard them until they're so rare that then you can really clean up? Alex West

Why so shocked? Maybe no bargain but at £11.65 for 5 including postage, that's about 0.76p per button cheaper than someone else charges Alex West

The Good Ship Kangaroo?

Russell You could also try the Trumpet Hornpipe (Captain Pugwash), Off to California would be appropriate (if a little cheesy), perhaps the Lucknow Polka (for the Star of India connection), The Indian Queen (similar reasons), The Bonny Ship the Diamond would be appropriate (if only it was a whaler). A few more shanties : Haul on the Bowline Poor Old Horse What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor Hey Ho Little Fishes Having played on ships before, nothing can be regarded as "essential" - playing anything at all will be well regarded Good luck! Alex West

Mike It sounds like you've got a big project on here. I'll try to stick to your two questions. You may be into replacing all the bolts for example from Concertina Spares; you can get drills taps and dies from www.modelfixings.co.uk but you're unlikely to match completely the original diameter and pitch of the bolts. You can get new M2.5 bolts and screw type inserts from Peter O'Connor (advertises on ebay as sandylaneman) and this will be a lot easier than trying to recreate the original tapped brass plate design unless you're trying to aim for total originality. The usual set-up for air buttons is to use two springs rather than try to just use one strong one. Is there a reason you wouldn't be able to fit two springs? Concertina Spares might be able to make you something up in a larger wire diameter than their normal phosphor bronze or in steel or with a couple more coils - that should give you more resistance but I'd go for two springs first. Is it worth the restoration? Not if you're looking to make your fortune! Good Luck Alex West

Dave Steve and Chris (and others) have covered pretty well all of the things I was going to mention about the "what" so can I be permitted some thoughts on the "how" the book might look in linking the elements of a repair? One of the key differences between repair and making new is the issue of how much to preserve, and I know that I spend a lot of time thinking about how to tackle a repair to get the sequence of the jobs right and then save as much of the original as possible without compromising the integrity of the finished instrument. As you are a much more experienced repairer, it would be really helpful to see how you approach the decisions at each stage of a job - for example whether to repair the woodwork or replace with new, whether to adjust the action or replace selected levers; whether to repair the gorgeous looking but mostly knackered bellows or replace with new. It might also be helpful to see a couple of worked examples, like the photo essays on Roy Whiteley's or Theo's site but with some discussion of how and why certain choices were made at each stage. Perhaps an indication of difficulty might be given for some of the repairs - which jobs are relatively simple and straightforward even for someone with limited craft skills and which take a lot of time, patience and care in the set-up even for the more experienced tinker. This might lead also lead you into choices of tools. What might be easy with an expensive machine tool for a large or repetitve piece of work (like a router, scroll saw or paring machine) might be difficult with hand tools, but hand tools might be preferred for some jobs. As someone else has mentioned (I think), there could usefully be a small piece on how to make some of the more specialist small tools or jigs. I suspect you won't be short of proof-readers but I'd also be happy to help Best of luck for this venture - it will be much appreciated I'm sure and could prevent a lot of bodged repairs Alex West

Ceemonster I'm not sure if these will help you, but here are charts for 2 "supra 40key" Jeffries anglos. You'll have to struggle with transposing the Ab/Eb and G/D into C/G if that's your preferred set-up but they should give you a clue as to what might be available. As I think the dots on the staves show, the range isn't significantly greater above and below a 30 or 39 key Jeffries (or 40 key Wheatstone), but there are certainly more options in differnt directions. The G/D is a little peculiar in that there are some fairly significant missing notes and discrepancies from any knind of "Standard" - I may get those fixed some time. The AbEb does seem to have more notes than usual down at the low end; this particular instrument is in high pitch and may be in an unequal temperament (which might also explain some of the apparently duplicated notes - for example the two E3s and the 2 F♯on the left hand. They aren't actually the same! On the subject of loudness, my wife's piano teacher asked me - having been mightily impressed with the concertina - what the dynamic range was? My wife explained afterwards that that was code for "so why don't you use it?". A lifetime of bad session habits Alex West 45 Key GD Jeffries.zip 50 key AbEb C Jeffries.zip

Thanks Lukasz & David. Problem solved! Alex West

Whenever I try to access the forums on my iPhone, I get a "Fatal error" as soon as I get beyond the forums main page and into one of the detailed forum listings. Is this a common problem? Alex West

My concertinas come sailing with me; but they only come out when on autopilot (ie calm conditions) or having arrived at a destination. I'm sure the reeds and bellows suffer in the high humidity and marine environment but since I'm only sailing for - at most - 10% of the year, I don't think their life is shortened significantly so I agree completely with chrism. The most risky times are when transferring to and from dinghys and these days, I try to make sure they're in a watertight bag; I think the "drifting Jeffries" tale ended with a complete rebuild. However, there's not much call for shantys, or whaling songs on a modern yacht! My recorder suffers the most when at sea; the combination of humidity and salt seems to badly affect the windway so I don't take that with me at all. Alex West

"Can I hope to get the existing leather ends off without damage so that I can reuse them? If so, how?" The short answer is yes. Most original bellows will have been glued together either with a starch paste or animal glue and in both cases, careful dampening will reverse the glue and allow you to gently peel back the leather end where it overlaps onto the first bellows card (under the papers and over the top of the gusset leather). Warm water will help as heat releases the glue as well; you don't need to soak them, just damp enough Removing the leather end from the bellows frame might be a bit trickier but the principle is the same. I've just achieved exactly this on a set of bellows I'm rebuilding at the moment. I haven't got to the stage of re-glueing the ends onto the new bellows yet though! Good Luck Alex West

What about Roy Whiteley at Accordion Magic? (www.accordionmagic.com). He's done some lovely repairs to concertinas which you can see on his website and he's in Knutsford Alex West

Gary The first, and I hope still the best, advice here is that with your history it's worth more to you than it will be to a later buyer so try to learn to play it yourself first. More or less whatever style of music you like can be played on your great grandfather's concertina and there are examples to convince you of that either lurking in previous posts here or on youtube somewhere. As to value, to my opinion, unrestored high end instruments seem to sell for a higher price than restored instruments (if you take into account the unrestored instrument cost, logistics costs, proper restoration and tuning costs and sensible dealers' margins). Sale prices for instruments in the US seem to be lower than in the UK and Eire; I'm not too sure about mainland Europe. Although Australia and South Africa are also places where anglos are to be found, not many come up for sale in the usual channels so it's difficult to see trends. With any auction (ebay or auction house), it depends very much who's there and the timing as to whether you get the top price or something less. Even though interntet search engines allow anyone to find an appropriate live or ebay auction for these instruments, the sale results don't give a completely consistent picture. Which is a long way round for saying that if you want to know what yours might fetch, then take a look at some recent auctions through ebay or saleroom and go figure it out - that's what I would have to do! If you want to know what it will fetch, then put it up for sale. But I do hope you'll try to learn to play it yourself or pass it on to another family member who'lll cherish it for both its intrinsic and family value Alex West

Given that a Lachenal 20 key anglo went for £360 a week ago, it's got to be worth something! Alex West

Daniel I've just finished restoring a very similar one, labelled and stamped as a J Russell of 158 Goswell Road, Clerkenwell but with all the characteristics (action, reed clamps) of a Nickolds Alex West

And here's the second file; I should perhaps have said that the red ovals indicate the reed locations where there is scalloping on the corresponding action face. I concur that the scalloping varies in quality (to be pedantic the better ones look like a sharp gouge was used whereas a knife (or a labrador's tooth) was used on the more ragged ones). In response to Adrian, the thumb button isn't universally the most nasal sounding of the reeds on the concertinas I could lay my hands on quickly; in some cases, it's the "inner" reed - the one(s) located on the lowest (4th) row. The C/G does seem to suffer particularly from the nasal quality but the lower pitched boxes I could get to are slightly larger anyway so the reed chamber volume may be that bit bigger anyway. There does seem to be a subtle difference between the draw and the press, but there is so much variability in timbre on the Jeffries that I doubt this is the significant variable. I have noticed in the past that Wheatstone anglos have much less of the timbre variability and "nasality" and that's certainly true of the quick test I just did; the Wheatstone C/G with a radial reed pattern is much more consistent in tone across all the reeds. In some ways, the tone variability is what gives the Jeffries its character and appeal - but perhaps not so much that it's difficult to bear playing it! Alex West

Here's the first file containing pictures of the corresponding reed pans

Laurence, Adrian I'll take a look at both of your queries and post later. It may take a little time so bear with me! I don't know whether it's significant that all of the scallops I've seen are to instruments with sycamore action faces. From a quick check on a very limited sample, the mahogany pans are just over 1mm thinner than the sycamore pans and from personal experience, the mahogany is considerably softer than sycamore so I'm sure that will affect the tones. I seem to recall being told or reading here that the mahogany built Jeffries always came with bone buttons and the sycamore built ones always had metal buttons. That's confirmed by teh ones I've seen but I don't know whether this a universal truth and whether this was an option or just a historical accident. Equally, I haven't done any research on the acoustic differences Alex West

I'm attaching here a file containing some photographs I've taken of various instruments which have the scalloping to the pad holes. I haven't got the recording equipment to enable me to carry out detailed trials but to the ear, I haven't been able to discern any noticeable volume difference from reeds which have the scalloping to those which don't and it's not always consistent as to which of the reeds sound nasal; in the case of the two 39 key C/G instruments, one sounds nasal and the other doesn't but I haven't thoroughly measured to find the differences. As you'll see from the photographs and the notes, there doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern as to which locations have the scalloping although it may be generally true that one is more likely to find the scallops on the larger Jeffries rather than smaller (30 keys or less) Jeffries and instruments from other makers Alex West

For what it's worth, here's the note layout for my G D concertina where the G row is higher than the D row. This concertina was made by Colin in the late 1970s I believe Alex West

A good friend of mine plays Scottish small pipes (and highland pipes and border pipes) and has given me this answer: "The "A" chanter, is probably the most common chanter for the Scottish Small Pipes and can play tunes that fit on the following scale (low to high): G, A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G, A. So the A chanter is "A mixolydian". You could think of them as playing in the key of D, but only the notes in this particular 9-note range. Just to confuse matters, pipe music is often written without any key signature, because the key signature is always the same. Occasionally you'll come across pipe tunes with accidentals, e.g. Cnatural. These accidentals require cross-fingering technique that typically doesn't work on the small pipes, but will work on border or highland pipes. "Most of the well known Scottish pipe tunes will work fine on the small pipes, i.e. any tune (such as the Rowan Tree) that fits in the above scale. Unlike the Highland pipes, a set of small pipes 'in A' will indeed play in the above scale (A mixolydian). Other popular alternatives would be a "D" chanter or a "Bflat" chanter. You can swap chanters in the same set of pipes, but your drones may or may not be tuneable to a range of chanters... "Highland pipes are a different beast : the music is written in A mixolydian (the scale above), without key signatures, but the instrument usually plays in Bflat, i.e. sheet music A = highland pipe Bflat. To complicate things even further, many sets of Highland pipes are tuned slightly higher than Bflat, to give a brighter sound." I hope this helps, Jody Alex West