Greg J. strikes again!

[hielandman]

Hello all,

I thought I should share this, and wasn't sure where to put it, so, I put it here... Wed. evening, just before I was to leave for my night job(teaching welding to adults!), the UPS man showed up with a large box, one I had been anxiously anticipating, from Covington/Taylor Mills, KY... in it were three (3!)Lachenal concertinas, All 20 button, two Mahogany, one Rosewood, happy days! Anyway, one of the mahogany ones was for a friend of mine in Orange County NY that she bought outright from Greg Jowaisis, sight unseen, (C/G)and it was absolutely beautiful, one would have thought it was new...The Rosewood ended one I bought on Ebay three or four years ago(I think from Chris Algar, but I don't exactly remember!), it had nice steel reeds, bad bellows, and was in C/G, and, since I have been unable to locate a 20 button Lachenal or Jones in G/D, I had Greg re-tune, reed switch, etc, whatever, to bring it up to D/G(we left the G row alone, I am still looking for a G/D Lach. 20 button)! It is very bright, loud, and responsive, and I am well pleased. The last one was one that Greg had picked up somewhere, that was in Ab/Eb, Greg told me about it(knowing how I feel about 20 button Lachenals), describing it as abysmal, but, I went for it anyway, and I couldn't be happier, he had done a great job bringing it back to playing life!

When I got home from class(10 PM), I opened the box, pulled the concertinas out from the packaging material one by one, and began playing...I was up until 1:00 AM....boy, was I miserable at work on Thursday(only 4.5 hours sleep, and had wine to keep me company whilst I played and tried out the concertinas!)

Prior to all this, I worked on the Rosewood one before sending it to him(pads, valves, lever arm grommets, stuff like that), and Greg took it(and the other previous concertinas I have sent to him over the last five years)to the next level, tuning to concert pitch, finding leaks I couldn't detect(though I knew they were there), and fixing them, setting the action, etc...He is amazing, and not only a great concertina mechanic/repairman/tuner, he is a great guy. Do not ever worry about entrusting him with your instruments, you will be in good(great!) hands. Hope you all have a great weekend, keep squeezin, take care,

Don

[shelly0312]

oooooh; I think I can see Greg blushing from 400 miles away.