Hello,
Thank all of you for sharing your repair experiences and input.
I work as an Engineer on large boats, so I've been out of touch for a few weeks and have just recently
been able to catch up on most of your collective information.
From your comments, there are some people very capable of doing fine work on a
project like this.
For the work on my C/G Jeffries 38 button Anglo I've decided to take it as far as my abilities and the resources
available permit.
So the old 6 fold bellows have been sent to John Connor for new bellows to be made on my end frames.
John said it will take him about 6 weeks total to complete.
The bellows Crab fitted on the concertina in about 1970 and that my concertina mentor Ale Extrom wore out before he sold me the Jeffries in about 1975 were all black and that is how I have been used to seeing it for 43 years. He is a brilliant player/songwriter but the instrument had a tough hard and worked time of it.
I never knew that C. Jeffries had originally used inscribed paper designs on his bellows until very recently, and although to my eyes it will take some getting used to, I am a traditionalist in many things and the new bellows l ordered will have the Jeffries designs included.
Correctly packing any valuable, rare, and and fragile object for international shipment is obviously important and take a bit of time but it seems that from the US Fed Ex is the only shipper that allows adequate insurance to be purchased to cover parts, new bellows, etc.
HOWEVER:
The limit of the allowable insurance is US 2500.00.
So while there is plenty of room for coverage on parts and even new bellows, this limit is way beyond inadequate to provide coverage to mail the actual insturment itself.
For the rest of the project I will order new valves, pads, and handles and install them myself and see how the action is and plays with the new pads.
A question for you all:
The handles on the Jeffries I have, have the leather handle adjustment buckle/clip keeper mounted on the wooden handle itself. The leather handles were cut short and ended at this location as the concertina was set up when I got it.
You can see the temporary leather handles it currently has fitted shown in the attached picture.
Are the handle ending as shown a variation of the original handle style? Or should the original style Jeffries leather handles be longer and have their ends fastened down on the sides of the concertina with the round headded thumbscrew as I have seen on some Jeffries concertina pictures on the internet ?
The available Jeffries re-production handles I have seen are set up this way.
For the work I'm doing I would like to put the concertina back as it was when made by C. Jeffries
As before, thank all of you very much for your comments. Your input os valued and appreciated.
Rick C.