Andy Holder

Theo, it might be worth having a chat to Richard Mason at John Keatley Metals 0121 236 4300. Evidently they do lots of small bits'n bobs. www.johnkeatleymetals.com They're oopnorth too. Andrew

It might seem blindingly obvious but, Kentish Town. Andrew

Hi Sally (or Zoe) If I'm not mistaken it was made on the 31st January 1956 (I was 5)! You'll find the relevant page in the production ledger here If you get joy from it then that's all that matters. It won't be long before it sounds gorgeous when you play it too. Good luck with it. Andrew

Beautiful instrument Frank. If I'm absolutely honest, I'm not wild about the texture of the leather. Andy.

Hi Bruce, it may be that there is a bit of contact between the reed and the reed frame, which would give a buzz. Or maybe some accumulation of dirt or rust on the edge of the reed or frame. If you have or can get the "Bible" by Dave Elliott it will tell you how to clean reeds. Andy.

Hi Alex. The leather valve isn't glued to the metal reed frame. It's glued to the wood on the other side of the reed pan from the reed, over the slot cut in the wood. I use Feibing's Leathercraft Cement See here which I think is just PVA but twice the price. Still, it sounds good! Some people use a mix of PVA and cornstarch glue and the real masochists use animal hide glue! On this concertina, it is glued to the metal reed block. This is a Scholer 20 button concertina that I am fixing up to have something that a real sailor would use. The one I am fixing up has a total of 12 trapezoidal reed blocks - each reed block has 5 reeds for the push, and 5 for the pull. There are 3 reeds per note, giving the pitch in 3 simultaneous octaves. It is a little late for me to photograph it right now, but I have a photo of another smaller Scholer that has only 1 reed per note, and therefore has only a total of 4 trapezoidal reed blocks. This one I am cannibalizing for parts. Here is 1 of its reed blocks, showing 2 of the leather valves glued to the metal reed block: I have something called "Eco-Flo Tanner's Bond Leathercraft Cement", that is the same thing as Feibing's Leathercraft Cement. I would not be surprised if it holds the leather to wood, because wood is porous, but it is metal that I need to know about. My apologies Alex. My lack of knowledge, I'd never come across that type of instrument before. I see your problem. Theo's idea sounds good. When you say a real sailor, are you planning to use it on a boat? On my boat, everything non ferrous rusts very very quickly! Especially dissimilar metals next to each other. Good luck. Andy.

Hi Alex. The leather valve isn't glued to the metal reed frame. It's glued to the wood on the other side of the reed pan from the reed, over the slot cut in the wood. I use Feibing's Leathercraft Cement See here which I think is just PVA but twice the price. Still, it sounds good! Some people use a mix of PVA and cornstarch glue and the real masochists use animal hide glue!

Andy, From experience - some bitter but some pleasant as well - you may find that the lower end instruments are much more challenging to repair or restore than one of the "better" names. The quality of materials used in the lower end instruments can result in a real struggle to achieve a halfway decent end result. It's probably also common that in your restoration, you've spent more time on the instrument than the original maker spent in its initial construction! Alex West That's certainly true Alex, although it's a very steep learning curve and you soon get to know the shortcuts. Andy

You're right Alex. I checked too. I guess they must take a random 2 characters from the username and put 3 stars in between. It seems to stay the same each time though. I didn't really expect to get it for 2.5 I tried for a couple of Jeffries' in auction houses down here. One went for 4,200 and the other for 3,100, plus 18% commission of course. I think Chris got those. He must have a very scary cash flow! (and good insurance!) He undoubtedly knows his market very well, although his ECs on ebay haven't been selling recently, there's a lot of re-listing. The sad thing for me is that I feel I'm ready to take on a refurb of that sort, but I can't get a look in, don't have the spare cash! So I end up doing the lower end instruments, which are great, but not quite as challenging. Cheers. a***0

Ebay aren't that clever. Chris's name is cocoa11 so they use the second last character, star star star, then last character - 1***1 Mine would be 2***0 but I've never bothered to look. Andy.

I went up to two and a half, thought that would be enough

Thanks Michael. I'd be interested to see the pictures. Andy

Hi Tony, No offence taken in the slightest. I'm always anxious that discussion eventually gets to the best outcome. I agree with you, that in many circumstances, 6 out of 10 isn't enough. Ideally you would seek a shorter insert and, as you say, glued and keyed. It was meant as a quick fix and in the case of this instrument, there is certainly plenty of good wood left and, because it is a tight interference fit in the hole, I feel gives adequate strength to the fixing. I did consider gluing in small dowels but I don't really like the idea of mixing end grain and cross grain, also dowels can shrink dramatically across the grain. Isopon or epoxy would do it but doesn't seem right in the spirit of the thing! Thanks for the input. Andy.

Thank you Theo. That's brilliant. I'll have a close look and probably replace those valves. I bought two beautiful hides of hair sheep yesterday which should keep me in valves for the next 10 years! Cheers Andy.

Sorry, I seem to be pestering with so many questions. I have a few notes where, if you play them very slowly and quietly, just after the reed sounds there is a sort of click and then a good sustained note, I'm guessing it may be the valve fully closing. All the valves are new and I've checked them. Will this just "play in" as the valves bed down? It only happens on a few. Thanks. Andy.

Thanks Frank, Geoff and Chris. I looked at them both under the microscope and couldn't see any witness marks of touching. No touching the wood either. Cleaned them both and put them back in. The noises have now gone away! Which is really annoying because I don't know what it was. Possibly not seated properly in the slot. Valves seemed fine, they're all new. The only issue now is a slight clicking, presumably the valve. I'm going to post a separate question because not many people will look at this now. Thanks again. Andy.

If you're machining from solid, the swarf is probably 80% of it, which, even if material is cheap, is a helluva waste!

I've got a strange reed, it's the A below middle C. It firstly has a metallic vibration and then it sort of growls! It's bang on the note but this growl is something I haven't come across before. It looks identical to it's twin (EC) the clearance looks fine, there's no crud hanging around and it's nice 'n shiny, nothing on the surface. I can't see any crack anywhere and it twangs the same as its mate. The valves are new and it's definitely not a beat frequency. Any ideas? It's driving me mad! Thanks. Andy.

Thanks to Henrik for unearthing it. I've started work on a replica machine (with some more modern bits!) Andy.

I thought I'd share this bit of good fortune, it is an accidental discovery which might save lots of work. I'm restoring a Maccann Duet which I bought off Chris Algar a while ago. The end bolts have been screwed down over the years so they are now sunk right into the wood. I was going to fill and re-drill the holes but I remembered something in my electronics bits box. They are plated brass standoffs for mounting circuit boards. Coincidentally they are almost exactly the same diameter as Lachenal and Wheatstone bolt heads, with a nice clearance hole and 6mm long. They are a fraction bigger which means they are a tight push fit into the hole the bolt head made. So all you do is clean the hole out with a 4.5mm drill bit to a depth of 6mm, start the spacer into the hole, then pull it right in with the bolt. Fill around it and polish. Before. And after. In the UK they are available from RS Components (the part number is 606-759) and are about 10p each. There are probably shorter ones too. Hope it helps. Andy.

Hmmm. perhaps I just invented the cheap Chinese Concertina! Not much leather in them.

Interesting point. I've been toying with the idea of constructing a "Vegan Concertina". I'm guessing that a lot of folk musicians might be committed veggies! Andy.

I will give that a try Chris. It sounds logical. The mandrel's an excellent idea. It prevents crushing the thread, although I guess it could be threaded as the last operation. Andy

Good point Theo.

Hi Sean. In the case of the Lachenals and Wheatstones, the hole was used in the manufacturing process for the routing of the reed slots. Look at this fantastic footagethat Henrik Muller sent to me. I did an experiment. I stuck a piece of paper over the hole and drew lines along the edges of all the reed frames. Guess what? They all ended up at the centre of the hole (obviously!) The reason the hole is offset towards the small reeds is that the angle of the slots then stays the same. If it was in the centre, the long reeds would have a much steeper angle than the short ones. Andy