Jake Middleton-Metcalfe

So far so good, we look forwards to what you draw. I hope to see you at consairtin again one day.

With a Suttner concertina your life will probably be made rather easier, they are good. The reason I say that is that although Jeffries made very good instruments, those instruments have suffered the ravages of time and hard use. Any Jeffries instrument will have been worked on outside the original business that made it by this point and sadly in many cases by people who don't necessarily have the skill of the original manufacturer which means you have some of these instruments being in good nick and others really not so good nick. It is a minefield. I don't know if it was always like that or not. I am not saying its not worth pursuing a good Jeffries but by comparison a Suttner is going to be reliably made to a certain high standard.

actually I have not seen that exact paper pattern one. It looks similar to other early patterns but the colours are different. Also it looks a different shape. Are those deep fold bellows? As in - is it anything over 1" deep? Its not bad really, I wonder if it was that colour originally though, some of those papers degrade over time - the typical one being Jeffries papers going green I have seen happening a few times. In any case I like the gold and dark red, it reminds me of a local and very old theatre! Best wishes and happy new year Henrik! It has been a while.

This is really really cool. Actually I hope one day to learn the 40 key C/G system (all I play I do so on a G/D 34 key). I have saved the link as it looks quite handy to help one think about arrangements and chord choices.

He always has used brass as far as I know.

Thank you, we have been playing local ceilidhs and events for some years but only recently managed to record a few bits. We hope to record more this year.

I would recommend trying to grip that very small amount of protruding thread with some very small pliers and just wind it out.

Also its known as drops of brandy, it seems it has many names!

Me, my wife and father in law recorded some of our music. Here is a set of three of our favourite slip jigs from the John Clare collection, which is the focus of our repertoire as a band, we just really love the John Clare collection. The tunes played in this recording are: Grinders, Roodlum Irish, and Drops of Drink. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo846PPHbW0&ab_channel=ChloeMiddleton-Metcalfe We hope you enjoy it! The concertina used on this recording was one of my own, a G/D 34 key.

I am sure you could purchase new ones from C.Wheatstone and Co direct.

That is good to know, thanks for sharing your findings.

It does sound weather related to me and as mike says possibly temperature related too. Concertinas generally don't like overly humid environments and the resulting expansion of wood that will happen. I have had similar experiences - though you normally have to push it a bit far to cause a problem. Once I played a set for a canal festival, it rained. I was playing my concertina in the rain next to a canal on a very muddy towpath and a reed started buzzing a bit and a button even started sticking... well I was sort of asking for it really in that situation.😆 As in your case I went home, put the instrument away and it was fine the next day, never again did I have the problem. The above situation is a pretty extreme environment to try to play any concertina in. I would just put it down to weather and not worry about it too much. I cant think of anything you could have done other than not to play it in that environment.

It can be really hard to advise without having it in my hands but that lever looks a little short - there is always a possibility that the pad needs a strap over the leather nut. Sometimes pads can catch on their pad holes or nearby pads if the lever is short and the button is released very quickly. Adding a strap stops this happening. I'm not saying that is definitely the problem it could well be some of the other things others suggest.

I like the black with the bloodwood Alex, its nice to have that contrast, it rather lifts it. totally black instruments can sometimes be a bit Indistinct visually I think.

I found an old print out of St Bernard's waltz which I was given at a session about 10 years ago and spent a few evenings learning it. Very fun tune, quite tricky to balance on anglo with an accompaniment as the melody goes quite low but the challenge was fun, I hope to upload a video soon.