Jake Middleton-Metcalfe
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Posts posted by Jake Middleton-Metcalfe
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I had a go on a metal ended metal pierced side concertina once, it sounded ... Aggressive.
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1 hour ago, Howard Mitchell-Borts said:
Any chance one being available to view at the Midland concertina meeting, 10th November?
I would love to go but unfortunately I have a commitment I cant get out of that day
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Things have been somewhat busy at Wolverton concertinas.
I am now offering a new design which is built around concertina reeds, the reeds are hand made in my workshop. This design comes with 31 buttons as standard but up to 34 are possible, currently C/G or G/D only. There is a display model so people are welcome to come and have a go if they wish.
The new more advanced model is based on Victorian instruments, both in look and construction - It is very much a hand made instrument. The design is not a copy of any one historical instrument but rather an amalgamation of the most desirable features from the existing historic instruments which I have studied. I have also added some features of my own – most notably the unique pattern of the hand-cut end-plates. I have put some images below, there are also some new recordings and more information about this model on my website:
https://wolvertonconcertinas.com/sound-samples/
https://wolvertonconcertinas.com/advanced-model/
A big thank you to the people who helped me develop this, you know who you are.
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The A# on the Left hand side should be A#3, always I would say. As for the C/E - that is one which there is variation on, sometimes it is E/C and sometimes the other way round apparently. I do E/C on my instruments though the reed could easily be flipped. There is not tooo much of an advantage either way with the C/E or E/C in my experience - It is rather a seldom used note. If you ever play pop goes the weasel in G it makes for a comic "pop" in the weasel, I think that is all I ever used it for.
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I have a small theory on this initial question - I think a lot of people find the Anglo easier to hold.
Not everyone of course.
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Hmm I cant offer tutorials at the moment though I can recommend the Chiltinas http://www.chiltinas.org.uk/links.html who are a group with mainly english players but some anglo players as well, you might find some help there. Alternatively my mate Phil who lives nearby used to do lessons, I will ask if he is still doing that.
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I notice you are in Northampton - I am a maker/repairer not too far away from you in wolverton - I would be happy to look at it and advise you if you could make the journey here
Jake
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that is a cool idea making the clamps in the same part and then cutting them off at the end. I am not interested in buying
but cool idea.
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those buttons look nice, what are they made of?
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On 9/8/2018 at 6:09 PM, alex_holden said:
I've worked on John's Crabb and the bellows are in remarkably good condition. One card had delaminated slightly and I successfully glued it back together.
I see, very interesting, I never knew any bellows were made in this way. Good insight
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There is sometimes a downside to bellows which extend over 90 degrees though - I am not certain that any of these bellows were ever designed to do that (though maybe some were I don't know), though I can be certain that sometimes such extension is actually caused actually by internal de-lamination of the bellows cards at certain points in a complex way - be cautious with bellows that can do this.
A Crabb concertina which opens to 114 degrees was mentioned. Perhaps Geoffrey Crabb might know - did crabb ever design their bellows to extend beyond 90 degrees?
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perhaps it was worth a potential difference in tone for an instrument which is not going to be temperamental in the African climate though.
Zak that recording sounds great! I love hearing this musical style. Are you saying in this recording the instrument has a perspex reed pan?
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Playing dynamics certainly are important as well, maybe this is why jeffries bellows tend to be a bit 'heavy duty' looking. If they were more fine they might have been somewhat unstable with that depth of fold
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The measurement I have observed on jeffries cards was 1" and 1/8th" or something near 28mm. The benefits of folds deeper than 1" which was standard on Wheatstone and Lachenal instruments is something which experts seem to disagree on. The argument against is: the bellows are able to extend further but the deeper folds mean there is a smaller volume of air inside. In such a case you would have a bellows that comes out further but does not actually have any more air inside. But others believe that the deeper folds do give you more air. I have been told conflicting things on the subject.
If anyone could mathematically or otherwise calculate weather a 6" wide 7 fold bellows with 1" deep folds has more or less air inside than a 6"wide bellows with 1" and 1/8th" bellows I would be very interested to hear what the answer would be. I was thinking about building a deep fold jig at one point but am unsure if I should bother.
alternatively: build one of each and fill them both with water and see which holds more ?
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I really have to get to that festival some day it sounds very good
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I have never purchased from them but I know Murray Grainger who runs the reed lounge, he is a competent musician on the accordion and has a lot of experience with the various brands of free reed instruments - be they accordions melodeons, concertinas, he used to work for the music room before they sadly closed. He is an all round good guy and I would vouch for him as an honest trader.
I hope this is helpful
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On 6/29/2018 at 5:22 PM, alex_holden said:
Thanks for the writeup, Henrik. It's a lovely instrument.
As it happens, I'm soon going to be Müllerizing a Wheatstone English for another member of this forum. The conversion is fully reversible because it involves making new action boxes to fit the original bellows frames.
Alex that is great. As an EC player you will be better able to understand Henrik's design than I was, as I play Anglo I was not really able to make much of it when I had a go - other than "this feels comfortable" *plays a few random notes*
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Well done, it is great to see how the design seems to have developed alongside your playing, and how the design has been subtly developed with regards to key spacing. It was great to have a go on this at the last consairtin.
I tentatively suggest... Perhaps other people might also benefit from playing an English concertina of this design.
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"BZZZZT!!!!! *lightning noises* explosions, eyes double is size"
I really wish I could afford this, this is one of my favourite historical designs.
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The outer layer looks like Brazilian Rosewood of a quality that hasn't been available for quite some time. One sees it occasionally in old guitars. It is very regular in grain, and doesn't have the black streaks that are now inevitable. These days it's essentially illegal. The inside appears to be mahogany, but I'm not certain of that. If it's not, it might be sycamore, a British version of maple which is quite common and would be good for that job.In the photo I can't really get a fix on what I'm looking at.
If I were doing this, I'd strip the rest of the veneer from both sides, glue on some currently-legal flashy wood, and go from there.
The core appears darker than sycamore - and the grain looks like it could be beech.
Stripping the veneer from both sides is an option I'm prepared to consider - but as a last resort (trying to have an easy life
). I've found a source of some rather nice legal Indian rosewood - so I may go with something like that if I have to strip the veneers off both ends. Or maybe some other wood since I'll no longer be restricted to matching the current veneers.wood veneer hub are very good. They aren't so far from me so I went to look around, if you get the chance visit their warehouse I would recommend it, they are prepared to show you around and look at different woods. They have some MIND BLOWING woods to look at! As well as some more normal ones.
The thing is their premises aren't like a shop per se - just a huge industrial hangar with loads of pallets of veneer - nice to see their website now sells smaller pieces as well though.
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great videos, great playing.
Does look a bit like his bellows are collapsing in the first video!
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I have no idea about the exact breed. I did wonder if "vintage wood" was exempt - I know there is a similar thing relating to ivory over a certain age being legal. Though I will read into it.
Dana - that is what gave me the idea, my friend chris has a concertina supposedly made from that old cabinet. Some of the pannels I have would be suitable in size and cut for action boards or even reed pans perhaps.
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Its a commercially available lacquer simply called "ebonising lacquer" I apply it by spray.
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At the risk of going too far off topic I have edited the original post. Here are some of the hand rests which were made from the wood, these will be ebonised. Its quite a nice wood to work with actually, the grain is not too deep.
Are the top modern models as good as or better than the old top model concertinas
in General Concertina Discussion
Posted
"as good as or better" is a bit hard to define as peoples tastes are quite different, beyond a certain level of quality its sort of like art appreciation and it really depends what you play and what sort of feel and sound you want.
In my opinion - without being too specific there are currently some makers producing instruments above and beyond what the first wave of makers made and I am very fond of these instruments. But someone else might very well say "oh well that is over the top how good does it need to be?".