Jake Middleton-Metcalfe

It's a good old video, and a nice historical record. Many of the machines and pieces of equipment pictured are still in use today! Not that old surface grinder though, I think that wore out years ago.

It's a bit of a sad thing to see the list of concertina makers apparently getting smaller. I wish more people would take it up professionally.

Well done for all the hard work on this one, and I really enjoyed the video. When I was a boy my father had this old wind up gramophone with a random selection of old disks. One was titled "Praise the lord and pass the ammunition" Which I think in error I always played much faster than it was supposed to be played. Your book looks much more wholesome in message.

In the past I did place quite a high level of importance on concertina weight but have come to regard it as not that important nowadays, with regards to Anglos anyway. With the exception: if the player is playing standing up then the weight becomes more of an important factor. What do you other players think?

I recently weighed a 40 button C/G Crabb Anglo with aluminium buttons, ends and reed frames, it came in at 1070gr I just thought I would post that here as to me it was really very light

Concertina reeds are less available, though one manufacturer, harmonikas.cz does supply then I have no idea of the quality. They are somewhat more difficult to make. At one point I made a series of recordings of hybrid concertinas and ones made with concertina reeds. Here is a link where you can listen to these recordings and come to your own conclusions: https://wolvertonconcertinas.com/sound-samples/ take note that in this link the recordings listed as "standard model" means accordion reeds and "advanced model" means concertina reeds. I hope this is of some help to you and wish you all the best on your musical journey.

What was the make and tuning of the instrument? I only ask as sometimes older instruments get re tuned and it can thin out the reeds which exacerbates the effect you are describing to the point where it's a real problem. The thinner the bass note gets the more responsive (theoretically) it is but the more it flattens in pitch under pressure. There is a sweet spot of thickness where you get a good balance of response to pitch stability but there is always an aspect of the musician having to not be too heavy handed about how they play it. Different manufacturers and reed makers have in the past had different opinions of where that "sweet spot" is. Some of the old Wheatstones had reeds which were surprisingly thin, whether or not that is an issue is sort of a question of how the musician is trying to play, and with what amount of force.

Thanks Geoffrey, that is very interesting and good to know. The stuff I use now is sold as dyed "tulipwood". Which comes in black. I might look into pear.

The Victorians usually used sycamore for the internal woodwork of the action box and reed pan, assuming it was one of the nicer instruments - and the exposed edges of the action box had a decorative thin outer veneer. The sycamore is a quite stable, relatively light in weight wood which (I am told) has good acoustic properties. The bellows frames were made of some sort of pine or other softwood - spruce is used by Wheatstone nowadays but it might have varied in the past I don't know. The ends of the nicer instruments - if wooden were an in house made plywood. All of the later Aeolas and Edeophones had plywood ends, I am not entirely sure what wood was used for those but although black it probably was a dyed wood and not actually ebony which is a bit brittle when thin. Basically its not a good idea to use solid un laminated wood as it will likely crack at some point once a complex pattern is cut into it. Only the cheaper instruments in the past had solid wood ends or instruments with very simple fret patterns. Most people building today are probably following the same sort of approach as the Victorians, but I can't be sure of that entirely.

That is sort of nice that it includes a small box of spare wheatstone thread bolts. It's also interesting to read their suggestion of solving a loose reed pan by guming down some brown paper over the chamois gasket as a packer to close the gap. Sounds a bit messy, would have been better to put that under the chamois gasket but they were probably thinking it would be easier for the owner "we don't want it back here again!" Sort of thing. Thanks for posting this here it's quite nice to see some personal correspondence with the business from that long ago.

That is quite an offer. Sorry I can't help but I am just getting into this sort of record following my inheriting a box of interesting records. If anything I would be interested in asking your advice on the subject in general, me being very new to it. I appreciate this is probably not the sort of reply you are looking for with this thread but if you did have some time to humour me, do sent me a PM as I have a load of questions about this sort of record. I wish you the very best with finding someone to take on the collection.

31 or 38 seems to be very popular here. G/D tuning is perhaps slightly more popular than C/G these days but it's not a big difference. Best wishes from England

that is a lot of 40 key anglos! Are concertinas mostly 40 keys in South Africa? Or is that just generally the preference for South African music? Best wishes Jake

This is quite an annoying problem sometimes, I have had that sound caused by both valves that are too thick.... Or too thin. It's the low notes that are the hardest to get right. Usually it's caused by them being too thin on those bass notes

Amazing, great article. It's great to learn a little more about how granny's attic came about too.

May I recommend taking this instrument to the closest concertina maker to you? It is really hard to fault find such a subtle problem if you are not experienced in making or repairing these instruments, there are just too many things that could cause it and it's a bit hard to get the feel for making the repair. It could well have been re valved at some point and the new valves are too stiff for example but making that call just requires a lot of experience with concertina valves and how they feel in your hand. I remember having a similar problem with one of my early prototypes and it was a bit frustrating not knowing why, I quite understand your feeling on this one.

Well done

really very interesting, looks like the tricky bit might be setting each individual 'chaser' to the correct depth, but there are probably ways around that, so far so good!

If you do this, could you please let us know how you get on? Its very interesting to see how people solve these problems - I did contemplate trying to make the tap and die but was offered the opportunity of adding an extra tap and die onto the order that someone else was making with a tool making company and just decided that it was money well spent and I never tried to do it myself.

I think these were all manufactured to 86 thou but perhaps the tolerance was + or - one thou, my reason is the original receipt wheatstone had from the company said "8ba shank 5ba thread or something like that. 5 ba is 43 tpi, perhaps the 44 one was just that the lathe was a bit worn or something, it seems a bit weird to change the spec by 1 tpi when actually the 43 or 44 tpi bolt would be most likely interchangable if the bellows frame nut is only 80 thou thick. Steve Dickinson sells these bolts but I'm not sure what lengths he has.

In terms of the transfer of knowledge yes, that is the timeline of it. I must point out though that Steve is still working and very much in control of C.Wheatstone and Co. It is great to work with and learn from him. Its nice to see in your avatar, an Aeola that looks somewhat similar to what the finished Aeola I am working on will look like!

If I remember Jürgen once told me that Wim Wakker used the same buttons as they collaborated to some degree on sourcing the caps, it might be worth seeing if you could buy them if what you need is the same buttons used on a suttner concertina. I hope I have remembered this correctly it is from a conversation about ,6 years ago.

During 2025, in collaboration with Steve Dickinson who owns C.Wheatstone and Co. I will make a 48 key treble Wheatstone Aeola. It will be made with amboyna raised ends, gold plated metal keys and fittings. This will become available to purchase once complete. Anyone is welcome to contact me to register their interest in advance and I will keep them updated. This instrument will be made in the conventional manner, and to the design currently used at C.Wheatstone and Co. It will be made largely using the original equipment. It will be branded as a Wheatstone instrument but with “J. Middleton-Metcalfe Maker” on the label. At this time this is an isolated project and I am not taking orders for Wheatstone concertinas, though in the future that may change. A bit of background information: Over a number of years I have been taught by Steve Dickinson, in the Wheatstone workshop in what could be described as an ongoing informal apprenticeship. We have gone through the conventional practices for every component in a Wheatstone concertina as were and are practiced at C.Wheatstone and Co. Many of these learned working practices have been applied to what I make at Wolverton Concertinas and now the time has come to make a Wheatstone concertina. Updates on the project will be posted here: https://wolvertonconcertinas.com/wheatstone-aeola-project-available-in-2025/

I could weigh some of my instruments to add on here, by the way was the Wolverton concertina on the list made with accordion or concertina reeds?

I'm surprised the magazine isn't just efdss just talking rather a lot about their own internal workings, they seemed to so that rather a lot at one point without much else, I do hope that ended.