Jump to content

adrian brown

Members
  • Posts

    697
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://dappersdelight.com

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Interests
    I play anglo concertinas with the 38 button Jeffries layout. I tend to play in a more legato 'duet' style, rather than the more bouncy anglo style, but it depends on the repertoire. I play a lot of "early music" - lute music, broadsides ballads and so on and I try to sing too. With my wife, we play as a duo "Dapper's Delight" named after the area in Amsterdam where we used to live. We play mostly 16th - 19th century music in our own arrangements and do some singing too.
  • Location
    Bredevoort, NL

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

adrian brown's Achievements

Heavyweight Boxer

Heavyweight Boxer (5/6)

  1. Yes I hadn't thought of that - makes perfect sense from the pricing point of view, doesn't it? Now it's just those pesky gold vibrators to worry about... There would be no point in electro plating them would there? I see it was quite a state of the art technology in the 1850's Adrian
  2. Silver and gold reeds can hardly have been very popular given that nobody here seems to have seen a concertina with them, otherwise surely some of them would have survived? It's slightly telling that a set of steel reeds is 50% more expensive than a silver set - a sign of the extra work involved in fitting the harder material? I wondered for a while if the silver and gold descriptions were more a quality statement than the actual material, but my previous statement knocks that one on the head. Is this the only extant advert/price list describing reeds made from precious metals? Adrian
  3. Thanks for that Chris - that makes sense, I'd forgotten that buttons are not always solid! But to come back to the vibrators, (and I hope you won't think I am obsessing over this!) if it indeed refers to the reed tongues, has anybody ever seen gold and/or silver reeds? I would have thought that quite apart from the cost, both would be a worse material than brass or steel? Cheers Adrian
  4. Thanks for you tenacity in digging this out Chris… I love the small print comment on Chromatic Anglo German Concertinas: “These instruments are constructed as the English, each Note being separately fitted, but for the convenience of parties who prefer ease to elegance in performance, are fingered as the German.” That told me… Also I might be showing my naïvety here, but what is meant by Vibrators? Are they the reed tongues? (“ready to use in the notes” = frames?) But were these really sometimes made of silver and gold as suggested? Am I right in thinking that buttons were called “studs” when made of glass, “keys” when in ivory and “touches” when silver was used? I don’t think I have ever seen ivory buttons on a concertina, although I am sure there must have been some, but a lot of bone. Since the instruments described as having ivory keys are cheaper than those with silver touches, I wonder if “ivory” in this case simply meant a white material like bone? Happy New Year everyone 🙂 Adrian
  5. How about shrink tubing, the type used for binding electrical wires together? It comes in many sizes and thicknesses and you might even add some sort of sealant under the tube before shrinking? It probably needs a few test pieces first to check for air/liquid tightness. Adrian
  6. Here's a photo of the cutter I mentioned in an earlier reply - it really saves a lot of time in sizing the bolt shanks. The internal diameter is somewhat wider just after the cutting teeth to relieve the friction on the newly cut shank. For the domed head, I ground a parting tool to turn the head and cut off the bolt from the stock in one pass. I hope this helps and let me know if it's not clear. Adrian
  7. Theo probably has more experience with those hollow cutters than me, but I found I needed to back bore the cutter to a larger diameter to provide some clearance to the shaft you've just cut. I think only about 3mm of the bore is at the finished diameter, the rest is about 0.25mm larger to stop the shaft from simply snapping off due to the friction. I hope this might save you a bit of time 🙂 Yes, you're right about the coarse thread - modern instruments seem to need ages to get all the screws undone, in comparison to old ones! And perhaps having a non-V profile gives the old screws a bit more resistance to stripping? Adrian
  8. Actually Alex, I only got the idea to make my own end bolts after being inspired by your post in 2017: In particular, I wanted to try the hollow cutter that Theo mentioned and said was an idea that came from the Crabb workshop. (It works brilliantly!) From there, things got a bit out of hand and I spent several days tinkering away at them. What part of the die making process went wrong for you? I'd be happy to share my experience, but I fear I might have just had a lot of luck to get it to work so well first time! As I said, I was terrified the tap would snap when I was cutting the thread in a piece of 1/8" gauge plate, but luckily, it held... Anyway, a belated thanks to you for the idea 🙂 Adrian
  9. Some years ago, I made my own die in order to make a set of new end bolts for one of my Jeffries Anglos. It goes without saying that you have to make a tap first, but if you have access to a screw cutting lathe and a milling machine, it's not too difficult, just quite time consuming! One of the problems with the Jeffries thread is that it's not a "normal" V section thread, but looks almost sinusoidal in profile. I used a rounded bit to cut the thread and then ran a stone over the peaks to try to mimic it. Once I had made a thread that fitted snugly in the "nut plates", I hardened the tap and ground the clearance flutes using a mini grinder attached to the milling machine. The nerve-wracking bit was using the tap to cut the thread in a piece of gauge plate to make the die, but once that was done, it was easy to drill clearance holes and file them to shape. Adrian
  10. That's really lovely Geoff - great to hear an Anglo played so delicately... Well done! Adrian
  11. The Netherlands has a relaxed attitude to bicycle riding, you should try one that we call an Omafiets over here, they are very comfortable to ride and put no pressure on your hands. Of course it is possible to do both at the same time... Adrian
  12. Very nice - I really like this! Adrian
  13. I was at the cinema last night for the latest (and possibly the last) Indiana Jones film and I'm pretty sure I heard an English or possibly even a duet in the "boat" scene. The actor appeared to be playing a single row melodeon, but the sound was pure concertina. Anyone here notice this, or was possibly the player? Adrian
  14. I found one of my early test strips in the workshop which will hopefully show my stitching method a little clearer: You can see the relative thickness of the card and leather - as I said in an earlier post, the magic ingredient is the hide glue (rabbit skin) which stiffens the laminate leather/card amazingly. You can see here that the stitching doesn't really go into the card With the jug cases, the most difficult stitching is on the side panels as the angles are much wider than 90°, so the needle goes in at a very oblique angle. In all this stitching, it's really important not to pull the threads too tight, as you can simply pull the thread through the leather. Adrian
  15. My baritone Anglo goes to cello C, two octaves below middle c, but then the bottom octave is diatonic apart from the Bb. With Anglos and Duets you can't have everything, or you'd end up with a beast the size of a Chemnitzer. If you want to play solo classical music that is basically in one or two parts, with the odd bit of double-stopping, surely the English is the best way to go? I think the limitation with the English is that with more than two parts, it gets pretty unmanageable fingering wise, but I am prepared to have my head blown off here:-) Because all the notes are there if you want to play a Bach fugue on one of the larger sizes? Adrian
×
×
  • Create New...