Jake Middleton-Metcalfe
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Posts posted by Jake Middleton-Metcalfe
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I am so happy people are taking notice of this tune! It is a less well known tune and its great.
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Rod I would love to see that anglo one day.
He could only show me his first two prototypes which were quite broken and had been in the attic for like 30 years. If it was one of his last ones you have it is probably quite a bit better than the ones I saw which were only prototypes. It is a shame the bank had to do him such a bad turn, maybe the business would still be around and be making really great stuff now.
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That is The Quarry. A lovely traditional English tune, not widely known. Thanks for pointing that out, the tunes are all titled now.
Hopefully I will see you at a festival this year!
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Sound samples now added to the website, check them out here:
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Thank you for adding me
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Jim, indeed, this is something I have noticed as well. Soon I will have some recordings so people can decide what they think. I was hoping my mate John Timpany could help me with the sound recording as he has an ace home studio. For a short while he also made concertinas in I believe the late 70s
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Hello
I will be uploading some sound files very soon. Hopefully some videos as well.
Jeff - The reeds used in these instruments are Italian hand finished accordion reeds (tipo a mano) they are of a high quality. The reeds are flat mounted in a reed pan made of a hardwood ply for structural stability and strength.
Further info on the reed pans as I experimented quite a bit here: When I was prototyping I decided on fairly deep reed chambers as this raised the volume and make a fuller less 'flat' sound. The chambers are shallower on the highest reeds as this improves response up that end. This practice of smaller reed chambers for the higher reeds is very much followed on traditional concertina reed pans as well.
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Good morning!
After a long period of careful designing and testing I am happy to announce that my small company Wolverton Concertinas is open for business. The instruments I am currently offering are high quality hybrid 30 button Anglo concertinas, in either C/G or G/D with either Jeffries or Wheatstone accidentals. They are clear, responsive, loud and fun instruments.
My personal area of focus has been to make an instrument which is very comfortable to play. As such I am happy to offer two optional extra features:
1: Air levers (as opposed to air buttons) off the shelf.
2: custom hand rests fitted to the players hands. To have these made the player just needs to try out our display concertinas which have a quick release hand rest system. A logical sizing system of different size and shape hand rests can be attached so the player can decide what works best for them. These new hand rests could be applied to any Anglo or duet concertina.
More details are all on here: www.wolvertonconcertinas.com
Have a lovely week everyone!
Jake Middleton-Metcalfe (profile name previously "jake of hertford")
Edited to add! Sound samples now online at: https://wolvertonconcertinas.com/sound-samples/
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very clever and simple, Love it. I will have to try that at some stage, cheers mate.
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blimy. They really did push the boundaries those guys.. I bet there are loads of bizarre experimental prototypes hidden away somewhere.
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yeah, sorry to hi jack your thread
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wait a second, wasn't I in the room when you came to collect this? I was hanging around with another prototype instrument trying not to get in the way too much
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tell you what this post has got me thinking, thank you for sharing your ideas dana.
I am quite intrigued by the technique of bevelling the cards at the top and the bottom to get around the fact the bellows have to stretch to the closed position (given that they were made in the open position)
The way I got around this problem was:
1: put my runs of cards on the mould (individual cards were joined up off the mould ( mould similar to yours but wooden) and join them all up with a strip of cloth glued allong on the top runs
2: let glue dry for 30-45 mins then take the bellows off the mould and clamp overnight
3:put the bellows back on the mould and glue the gussets and top runs of leather and again wait for 30-45 mins before removing and clamping the bellows overnight
this process gave me a bellows that was not acting like a spring always wanting to open.
My question is: does bevelling the cards allow you to skip step 2 on my list above?
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Only hard because you have to make the molds, which are a bit of work compared to the hex or octagon cores or easier yet a piece of pvc pipe. Having done it both ways, the extra support the molds give to the folds when gluing the gussets or butterfly's/papers depending on style, is nice. The down side is the fixed angle at the ridges, which only means you want to allow for the top runs to stretch sideways ( not lengthwise ) so the bellows can close. On a core mold, you can pinch the peaks closed when you glue on the top run which means it is glued in the closed position. I get around the stretch by beveling my card at 45 degrees on both the peaks and valleys so the leather bends around a point rather than a square or v shaped ridge. I leave 2mm of space at the bottom when I glue on the inner hinge so the thickness of the covering leather has someplace to fit when folded closed. Steve Dickerson had a jig to lay out the cards with 2mm spacers between them, but I just use a long piece of angle iron with a couple wood strips glued on the side to support the long beveled card strips when I glue on the leather valley hinge. The side support strips are just low enough so the card doesn't get to the peak of the angle iron ( ^ orientation) which leaves just the right gap after gluing, both edges are beveled with the mat cutter / / so when you put the cards together, the outside peak and the inside peak look the same ( you swap ends ever other piece ). /\/\.
I see, yeah milling aluminium can be a laborious process, looks well worth it though for a very good mould.
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Great looking moulds. Why is this the hard way though? I always thought this was the best way
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oh wow!
Yes this was made for my friend, who wanted to learn some sort of squeeze box for years. Andrew mentioned the project and I mentioned that my friend might be interested, its great this thing happened what a lovely occurrence. She is enjoying her instrument a lot.
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We don't have (so far as I'm aware!) people taking new top-end concertinas and scuffing up the bellows, rubbing finish off the ends, breaking out pieces of fretwork, etc. to make them look like old Jeffries or Linotas or Aeolas. Thank goodness for that.
Ken
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I have a friend who is a violin maker of the highest order. This luthier often takes great care to distress the patina of the varnish making it look like an old instrument. Instead of a shiny new fiddle he makes his instruments look like they were built centuries ago. I've seen him do it. After varnishing he rubs most of the varnish off, revarnishes, over-polishes, adds pits and scratches and scrapes and black soot, rubs his nose grease into the wood and I don't know what all. He keeps at it to mimic the aging process of a wooden object that is constantly handled and subject to the mishaps of use.
He told me that he was convinced the players who requested this treatment wanted to sound like they were playing a Strad or Amati and the fact that the instrument looked like one helped them actually play and sound better. These are great sounding fiddles regardless of the treatment and top notch classical musicians who play them. Even though his customers knew they were playing a modern instrument, the appearance of age seemed to give them a psychological edge in their quest for musical excellence.
I'm not sure if I buy all this, but that's the story.
I have seen this sort of thing going on too, my father in law has a great fiddle. I always thought it was very old but recently learned it was 2009.
To be honest this sort of thing makes me kind of sad, it feels so fake.
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Hmm gluing plastic to wood is particularly tricky to do in a way where you get a strong bond. What I would suggest instead is that on your small lathe you drill a small hole on the underside of the button and a corresponding hole in the lever and put a small self tapping screw through the lever from underneath and into the button, you would surely get a more secure bond.
this website is great for ordering small screws: http://www.modelfixings.co.uk/self_tapping_screws.htm?qty=9.00&sub=10.05&shp=0.00&dis=0.00&vch=0.00&tax=0.00&tot=10.05&unt=5.9&sd=&tp=CONTINUE+SHOPPING
Whether this is possible or not I am not sure as I haven't seen the mechanism in question, do you think it will work?
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this is all getting very very technical..
?? Isn't *weight* ( or mass..) a rather technical subject whatever way you look it?.. but if I expressed myself
poorly please ask for some elucidation...Some of it is biological rather than technical I think which also may
call for additional comments particularly if you don't recognize your own body in the description...
My ultimate intention however was to reduce the importance of *weight* - as a technical issue - in contrast
to other playing circumstances of greater importance from a general ergonomic outlook and even more from
the musical aspect. Maybe I failed expressing that...
Dont get me wrong, what you are saying is perfectly clear and the thread is very interesting indeed. I was just remarking that this is the most in depth analysis of this issue I have ever seen, that is no bad thing.
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this is all getting very very technical..
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Have a great time with your playing and dancing, whatever type of concertina you have.
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I currently work as a model maker, what scale is the railway layout? ...
Thanks for those insights into the possible alternatives to the multi-tool - though we seem to have established
that for the basic 'tina maintenance I am likely to undertake, the multi-tool is probably not really necessary.
Roger
fair enough, I wouldn't choose a dremel for the concertina maintenance either. Don't rule it out for the railway models though
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I currently work as a model maker, what scale is the railway layout?
The coolest thing about the dremel is the number of attachments you can get for it, you can even get an attachment to turn it into a rudimentary milling machine as pictured below:
this allows accurate drilling of holes and slots at semi precise co-ordinates and it is small.
I would say that a regular pillar drill (drill press US name) is probably a better investment as you can get similar attachments for these such as this:
http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-cross-clamp-vice-75mm-3-953001
However if as you say space is limited (I see you are in the big city) dremels can be a great tool as all of the attachments to turn it into.. a mill, a router and whatever else are pretty small.
So bottom line I would say pillar drills are probably more desirable and useful but take up slightly more space and are potentially not quite as versatile.
New Concertina Making Company, Wolverton Concertinas
in General Concertina Discussion
Posted
hi jim PM sent.