Harold Herrington

I have read lots of copy about why some of the English concertina reed frames are beveled on the off-side of the reed slot. I say some, and not all, because not all English reed frames were beveled on the off-side. I think most statements on this subject are honest attempts to explain something observed without the benefit of actual experimentation to prove or disprove the theory. Today there are reeds being made that have straight reed tongues. That is to say non-trapezoidal as with the Italian accordion reed. These parallel sided reed tongues are mounted in straight sided reed slots with no bevel on the underside. They start easily, have good dynamic range and have very good pitch stability. So, while the underside bevel may improve reed function, I am not convinced that this is all that important.

Greg I am an accordion reed Anglo builder in Texas. I am very interested in where you got the gold stamp dies for the bellows end leathers. Can you give me a hint as to where to get them and something about cost. My direct email is anglo@concertinas.com . My phone number is 214-703-0409, and I am here most of the time. Harold Herrington Rowlett, TX 75089

I am Harold Herrington, and anglo builder in Texas. I would love to see how this instrument is arranged. It might be quite interesting. I've never heard of such a creature.

As to "Sub-contracting": We will not be having any parts made in the far east. We will build and finish the end-frame, bellows frame, and bellows, here in my shop. It is in the making of the internal parts that greater efficiency will be achieved. Here is the plan. If one looks down through the layers of parts that make up a concertina they go like this: Grill, bushing board, button board, action board, and reed-pan. If all of these parts are made using a CNC laser and or CNC machining process, and all are made from an integrated program, everything should line up without a lot of hand fitting. At the same time the action board/button board are made, the laser will mark the fulcrum locations. Doing this eliminates all the fiddling with the position of the fulcrum to make the valve opening uniform. I expect this approach to save a lot of time. The parts should go together fairly fast and leave a lot more time for voicing, tuning, and adjustments. Harold

Bill I will soon furnish photos of both the outside and the inside. My guess is that some of the other builders will see the advantage of this approach and incorporate it in their instruments. I too hope this all works out. My original idea was to produce a concertina built to high standards, and at a truly affordable price. That is still my goal. As to keyboard layout variations. I already offer a Wheatstone keyboard with a double C#/D# in the first two buttons of the right hand. I do this by shifting the right hand accidentals over and placing a C#/D# and a D#/C# in the first two positions. I drop entirely the original third row note that is in position five. This is no loss since it is never used anyway. We can also offer a C#/C#, F#/D# in those first two buttons, with the rest being a standard Wheatstone, but moved over. I hope this makes sense. I guess it would be best to publish the keyboards. But beyond these option there will not be any other "special" offerings. Our economy will at least in part come from standardization. If a buyer want something of his own invention he should go to someone else with my blessing. Harold

I think an accordion reed concertina with a removable reed-pan makes a lot of sense, particularly from the view point of the maker. It adds a great deal of flexibility in construction. My original design called for the reed-pan to be attached to the action. This would eliminate any problem with leaks between the action and reed-pan. This is the way all accordion reed-pan concertinas are being made today. However, if the reed-pan is damaged in construction you have a big problem on your hands. I am using a gasket material between the reed-pan and the action that makes a leak highly unlikely. Also, the fact that I use body screws in the corners of the hexagonal body make the likelihood of a leak due to warping irrelevant. Harold

Accordion reeds, yes. My objective is to produce a concertina that pays well and is affordable. To go the route of using an English type reed is going in the wrong direction. I'll have photos shortly.

Greetings. The Herrington "Blackthorn" concertina Six months ago I was seriously considering quitting the concertina business and spending more time fishing and playing with my grandchildren. I was bored and burned out. Then John O'Shaughnessy and I hit upon the idea of a new and refreshing approach to concertina construction. Here is the proposition. Building concertinas of quality is a very time consuming endeavor. If we could somehow eliminate the routine repetitive functions involved in construction, and spend more time on the high skill functions, we might be able to offer a better instrument at a better price. This would be fun and exciting. For the past year I have been working on a new approach to concertina construction. Actually, new is not correct. My design utilizes a riveted action and a removable or floating reed pan. These are design features of the earliest English made concertinas. How about that. As part of this idea we wanted to relegate all the routine and redundant parts to a sub-contractor, with the parts to be made by CNC laser or other modern machining and manufacturing equipment. The end result would give us interchangeable parts with a high degree of accuracy and consistency. While this would raise the fixed cost of each instrument, it would also reduce the number of skilled hours required to build and finish a concertina. The truly important work in building a concertina comes with the setting and tuning of the reeds, and in making all the adjustments to give the "feel and response" that the serious player is looking for. We have finished the prototype and are very pleased with the results. Next we must do detailed time studies to see if we have actually gained anything from all this work. On paper it looks good, but only time will tell if it can be sold at a lower price. We also plan to operate from a stock concertinas inventory. I don't care for the idea of a customer having to wait months, or years, for an instrument. We want to offer an excellent instrument with no waiting time. You place an order and we are ready to ship within a week of receiving your payment. We are not taking any new orders until we have a minimum of six concertinas on the shelf. The same money-back guarantee of satisfaction will apply to the "Blackthorn" as has applied on all of my concertinas. If it does not please you, send it back for a refund. Now this is not meant to be a "trial" service, but rather applies to instruments returned for cause. We actually expect this to be as good or better than any accordion reed concertinas being offered today. The only down side is, we plan to limit the number of options that a customer might have. Initially we will only offer the instrument in the Wheatstone or Jeffries C/G with a few standard variations. The wood will be black walnut either natural or darkened. The bellows will be black with seven folds. Ends will be polished stainless-steel in a tree of life pattern. It is our belief that the lower price for a thoroughly excellent instrument will greatly out-weigh the lack of custom features, such as wood species or some special keyboard. We will call our new progeny the "Blackthorn". And like the famed walking-stick it will be simple, tough, and able to settle occasional arguments. May God bless all who read this. Harold Herrington

Dear Chris Yours is one of the only Herrington originals that has not been refitted with a new mechanism. If you will send it back I'll be glad to take care of it. For you I'll cover shipping both ways. By the way Chris, how are you keeping, well I hope. Harold

I hope Harold will respond with a more complete and accurate answer, but I believe you are correct. At some point after he made and sold his first concertinas (which was in 1998, I think) Harold contacted all purchasers and re-installed a more traditional mechanism. I believe he was able to track down and convert the mechanism in each concertina that had his original unique mechanism. I had a conversation with him more than a year ago to determine if my Herrington had gone through the conversion. He confirmed it had. Not sure what was wrong with the original mechanism; again, hopefully Harold will be able to clarify all this. In any case, one of the strengths of my Herrington (30b, six-sided C-G) is its very quick action. Also, its a very durably built instrument.

From Harold Thank you for your kind words. The original Herrington mechanism used a fixed steel post that functioned as a guide for the button and a coil spring. This mechanism design proved to be problematic. It was modified to eliminate the problem, but the revised design was rather complicated. This translated into it being more costly and time consuming to produce. That design was dropped and replaced with a mechanism somewhat similar to that of the Lachenal. This revised design has proven both sturdy and reliable as well as fast. Currently we are working on a new design that uses a removable reed pan and a riveted mechanism. I guess you might say we have come full circle. We are very pleased with the new design. We are doing construction cost and time studies as this is written. We are also going to have many of the most time consuming parts fabricated by a CNC laser. These parts will be more accurate than those built by hand and hopefully less expensive. This will leave me and my associates more time to do the really critical things that require special skill and experience, As a side benefit we hope that doing will allow us to significantly increase production and at the same time cost. If successful we plan to lower the selling price. There are still lost of work to do on time studies. I can't say if we will achieve our goal, but we are going to hive it a run for it's money. Harold Herrington Rowlett, Texas

Why don't you call Bob Tedrow. I know him to be honest and helpful. Harold Herrington