Rayune

Great insights! Thanks for sharing those, and I am glad to hear from someone who has dealt with them.

Glad to have you weigh in! I was really intrigued to see how some of the solutions were reached, and the total cost was something that I'm glad you volunteered, since that's something I was sort of wondering about. With it running a somewhere less than $300 for the second one, if the goal were simply, "Acquire Concertina," then I'd be tempted to just pick up a Hohner D40. But, of course, that isn't the point. What parts have you found that haven't held up as well over time with each of them? Given that cardboard, electrical tape, paperclips, etc. aren't generally considered "quality materials," I am curious as to what has held up well and what has not, and whether the glue that you used has done the job. Which components were most costly in your build?

Model Concertina-30 button.pdf Here's the quote sheet that Fraxinus posted. You can see how the true DIX-series reeds are indeed 200+ Euros, but there are certainly those that are low-end, as well. For reference, the accordion that I got for free is the one that Liberty Bellows features in this video, except that mine is blue. To hear the player on actual songs from the halfway mark, it's not something like a Beltuna, but it's fine as a learner's instrument, although many would call it kind of a garbage instrument. I bring this up to say that, if I am looking at something like that with the Mechanika reeds (so called because they are entirely machine-made and machine-tuned to within +/- 5 cents), then I am perfectly happy with that. There's just no way of knowing where it'll land on quality without hearing it, though. That's where I kind of struggle.

Good advice so far. I'm definitely feeling that making my own reeds is not the way to go, which leaves me with either (A) scavenging them from a busted-up instrument, or (B) purchasing the set of them somewhere. My fear with getting a "donor" instrument is that I will get some that are out of tune or flat-out unusable, adding additional complications into the mix. On top of that, if I find a donor concertina, then the obvious question becomes, "why are you building a hot mess of a concertina when you could've just fixed the higher-quality one that someone gave to their local Goodwill?" From other posts, it sounds like harmonikas.cz is about the only place where I can reasonably source a set of reeds as an individual. In this thread, the user Fraxinus looks to have gotten a quote out of them on a full set for 30-button Anglo. Their lower-end accordion reeds would run in the 20-50 Euro range, which is far cheaper than I anticipated. I'm wondering if the Mechanika class at around 20 Euros is going to be perfectly serviceable, or whether it's going to sound as bad as my kids' toy accordion! If those are fine, then it's probably cheaper, even with shipping, than finding a donor accordion in most cases. From there, though, I'm not too concerned about sourcing this part or that part. My intent is to build from the ground up, stealing ideas from others all the way and probably basing my construction off of what the user charleschar has done with his 25-button Anglo and later his Crane Duet. I may do some upgrades from there, using ragboard instead of cardboard, for example, but I don't need to care too much about finding bellows or reed plates that will fit. I'll just build it so that it does, but I welcome pointers to improve my odds.

Hello, all. I'm new to the forum, but I've been doing some reading on here and watching videos on building a concertina of my own. As a little background, after spending way too much time with technology in the first part of my life, I've been doubling down on going analog (right down to coffee in an urn on the stove, shaving with a safety razor, and using cloth napkins and handkerchiefs) and learning new skills (repairing my own drywall, beekeeping, etc.) over the last few years. I recently took up the piano accordion, but I did NOT want to shell out a bunch of money, so what did I do? I got a broken-down one from eBay and fixed it up. I then took it a step further and found somebody who was re-selling broken, store-returned instruments on eBay, and I taught him to fix some common problems with his store returns in exchange for a 72-bass SofiaMari accordion. Yes, I know that neither an old beater or a SofiaMari are necessarily great instruments, but they're fine for me as a learner. So I wound up with two accordions that I am learning to play: one for $100 after shipping, and another for free. I decided that the building and the repair were extremely rewarding. Fast forward a couple of months, and I found the Anglo concertina. I like the sound of a piano accordion better, to be honest, but the concertina has its own charm, and certain genres of music seem to be particularly well-suited for it. However, the prices of these are pretty steep, as you are all aware (particularly when I am currently averaging $50/instrument). I thought I'd take it upon myself as a next project to build my own, going off of some of the plans and posts around here. One question that I had, though, was around which kind of reeds to use. I've already resolved to use accordion reeds, but if I am building an Anglo concertina, then am I going to need to (or even just benefit from) harvesting reeds from a diatonic accordion instead of a chromatic accordion so that they are already arranged to produce different notes on push/pull? Or is it a situation where, depending on how I construct the reed pan, the type of accordion wouldn't really matter? Let me know if I'm not making sense with that question. Of course, as a follow-up, I know that some of you have even made your own reeds, and I am wondering what degree of difficulty and expense this has posed for you (I believe I know the answer to this already, but it's still worth asking). Thanks!