Duncan Luddite

Thanks everyone for the above discussion, and information. Found all this to be encouraging, and as a B reed, on the draw, on my Jabez Austin EC has recently gone from in tune to 25 cents low (and was whisper thin for the last quarter of it's length), I had a shot at making a new brass reed. The dropping reed was nickel, so not an original as all except 4 or 5 are brass and were made by Nickolds (with the open sided screw slots in the clamping bar). I carefully undid the brass holding screws and flipped over the shoe onto some hard, fine, sheet brass I have and ran a scribe along the two sides of the throat, the resulting lines I then continued out with a ruler to make a longer, tapered strip. This was cut just outside the lines, held in a small hand vice and filed until it slipped into the throat (the remains of the scribed lines uppermost so that they would be removed in the tuning process). Clamping bar reinstalled, and it gave me a nice E below B ! Lots of abrading later I now have an in tune B. When I originally got the Austin, all the brass reeds had a layer of verdigris on them and, once cleaned (at a clockmaking friend's workshop), nearly all of them needed re-tuning (mid. 1800's style, though at A440), so that part of it I was familiar with; although, as this was a reed I had made, I didn't have to be so concerned with the prospect of ruining it, and as such was able to 'push the boundaries' of what I knew in doing the tuning. So I've done some learning In the photo the right most item is the dropping nickel reed, the middle my new home-made reed fitted, and the left is it's partner, 'push', reed. Thanks again for this discussion.

"I think yours, @Duncan Luddite, is actually the same as C-230. C-231 has very simple drilled fretwork. " Oops, my bad Nice work on repairing the frets, @BrokenBox

A little off topic, but may I ask, @BrokenBox, what the fretwork looks like? I have a Jabez Austin 32 button EC and the fretwork is identical to C-231, and a couple of the others. Mine was made in the mid. 1850's, so that might help with rough dating.

G'day @VIN, Billiard table felt is a woven felt (around 1mm thick) that works very nicely for various concertina bushings. I've used it for punching out the 5mm diam. under key circles, and for lining the key cross holes for the pad control bars to pass through (all set up as d.elliott describes in his book). Find a billiard table repair shop and nicely ask if they have any offcuts for sale. A cheap way to get *all* the felt you need. They quite probably will have a number of colours as well. I found one local to me and now have two strips of red felt, about a hand span wide, and four feet long Lifetimes supply.

@Takayuki YAGI Ah, yes. Thanks for that link. Interesting.

This Concertina just popped up on FB Marketplace. I've never seen a concertina with the bevels on the end plates like this.

@Alex West, Those are gorgeous bellows

G'day Vin, Sorry I didn't get to the conversation earlier, but here's what I did. I found an accordion bellows pattern (a search of 'diy accordion bellows pattern' should get you some results to work with) and made one out of paper (with the join halfway along one side, not near a corner), which I stuck to a couple of pieces of plywood, the top one being longer so that a light screw clamp can be put over it to attach it to my work bench. Several holes were drilled through the top ply to make the intake/reed air port (ignore the over large central part of the hole. That was a mistake), and the exhaust ports, which have soft leather flap valves. The whole apparatus compacts right down and will slip into a bookcase. I use an elastic hair tie to keep the bellows closed when not in use. A 'mounting plate' was made out of more ply for mounting the reeds to, the underside being lined with suede, dressed with Vaseline to help it stick in place/seal, and a card location frame put on the top bellows ply to give a consistent register. Make sure you don't cut the air slot for the reeds too long, as the slot will start to creep out the end of the smaller reeds, giving a bad seal; or make two or three mounting plates with different sized air slots to comfortably cover all reed sizes. A leather flap valve is fitted under the air slot. To hold the reeds in place I use two strips cut from a hardwood Venetian blind that have been sanded to a bevel along the inner edge (to match the bevel on the reed shoes) and sanded down in thickness to match the height of the reed shoe, and are held in place by 4 'Button head' screws, one at each end. Slightly slackening them allows the strips to be pressed against the edges of the reed shoes, at which point they are re-tightened. Geoff Wooff pointed out that the reeds, while in the concertina, will play at a slightly different pitch than when they're in the tuning bench, so you need to find out their value in situ, then find their value on the tuner bench so you don't over shoot your target. Photos of what I was describing are below. All the best with the project.

Hey @Kerry Mac, There's an opportunity to meet a bunch of knowledgable, and enthusiastic, concertina people this coming weekend in Yackandandah. https://concertinaaustralia.org/concon25-prog.html https://concertinaaustralia.org/concon25-pres.html It's only $30 for the whole weekend. https://events.humanitix.com/concertina-convergence-2025 For if you're interested. Will be my first time going as I only got my first concertina late last year. Cheers Duncan

G'day Chris, Sorry I took so long to reply; things happening, and lost track of the days. Tried last night, and this morning, simultaneously gripping a smooth bone tool and the ivory sector and I couldn't detect a difference in perceived temperature either time. They are kept in the same locality. I was fully expecting there to be a discrepancy between the two, and in my head was thinking that the ivory would be the 'warmer', but, no, no difference. Cheers Duncan

Just found out about this event today: the Concertina Convergence Jan. 31 - Feb.2 2025 will be happening in Yackandandah, Victoria, Australia at the above dates. It's only $30 for the weekend with a lot going on. Here are links to the timetable and ticket page. Man, I'm going https://concertinaaustralia.org/concon25 prog.html https://events.humanitix.com/concertina-convergence-2025

Just found another 1850's EC with identical fretwork as my Jabez Austin. It's on concertinashop.com.au and is 48 key by Rock Chidley; so it would seem that the fretwork was done by the same fretwork 'house'. The three JA's in the Concertina Museum have quite different designs, as well as the JA an owner put up on this site some years ago. On the Concertina Museum, the first 4 Rock Chidley EC's have the same fret design. I'm intrigued

@Paul Evenden It's probably worth looking at sites that specialise in antique Concertinas and see what they have. I just had a look at Concertina Shop's site here in Australia and they have this one, which at Aus -CAD exchange works out at $843CAD. Don't know what postage would be though

P.S. I got a concertina for Christmas …. more that, my wife bought me the concertina for Christmas, but I needed to do a ton of work on it, in the lead up, without the rest of the family knowing, so that it worked and I could learn to play “Botany Bay” and “Silent Night” for Christmas lunch XD

Sooo… are we to assume Ernie Bushmiller didn’t have good experiences of concertinas……