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What our concertinas look like?


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  • 4 months later...
  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, Wolf Molkentin said:

the mean green machine, wasn’t it that Geoff?

Indeed  that is  its name  Wolf.  This was taken at  a  New Year Ball  probably 2011.  The  concertina  is all original  except  for the bellows and straps, which are from  Wim Wakker.

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45 minutes ago, Geoff Wooff said:

Lovely shine  on  this one  Wolf!!!

I find the shiny (original) looks are reflecting the character of this (apparently not so much played) instrument. It has a well-balanced but distinct voice - not a screamer like my model 24 but very capable of fast playing in the treble range and adding „bass“ notes ad lib., maybe with potential for even more...

(I chose it over a slightly later model with more closed fretwork, with very lovely low notes but too muffled in the treble range to my taste)

After having denied the need and extra value of a TT to myself for years I‘m very happy to be able to expand my playing in this direction now - however switching back to the light, fast and „screaming“ 24 ET from time to time is nevertheless appealing to me, as well as perfectly manageable.

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  • 3 months later...

And here is my brand new Wolverton C/G 30-button Anglo made by Jake Middleton-Metcalfe, enjoying a refreshing local beverage at Tisa's Barefoot Bar in Pago Pago. 

 

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote of concertinas from time to time, so perhaps this is not the first concertina in American Samoa? Nice to be able to continue the tradition!

 

Gary

 

Concertina-PagoPago.jpg.944534501d4aaa3d3b21e063ae7f6f5e.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey Bob & Marcus, yes indeed what a lovely instrument! Jake has done a masterful job. It's not quite as loud and bright as my Herrington (but then again no other hybrid has ever come close to any of Harold's instruments), but it's solid and very well built, plays with a lot of dynamic range, bass is clear and not muddy (a problem with many hybrids) and it is a pleasure to play - that's the most important part, yeah? I love the stainless steel ends - there will be no problems with pitting or corrosion like the nickel silver on my Jeffries Duet. I'll do a full review here on cnet once we work out a slight problem with the button dampers (leather for now, not working as well as felt).

 

Re: videos. Be careful what you ask for! I've not posted for awhile due to moving to a really noisy environment and having a problem with the tuning of one reed on the Herrington, but... now that I've got this fantastic new instrument look for a few pirate tunes as well as 75(!) videos of cowboy songs coming soon to an internet near you.

 

Gary

Edited by gcoover
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

My Auction House purchase Lachenal Crane 35k, now playing well.  The original handle which was pretty shredded still bore the Triumph - Salvation Army - gold emboss.  The serial number is "4062" from 1910'ish ??  It was fairly rough out of the box ( except there was no box!) and I am sure I overpaid, but they don't come up very often and I like a challenge.

It came from a seaside town and the levers all showed that they were ferrous via the rust where the leather grommets had held moisture over the years.  It had a missing handle and associated components and a fair chunk of end missing and the other side had all the necessary fractures in the fretwork for that to part company too before much longer.   The bellows, fortunately were in pretty 'good' order.

 

I rebuilt and reinforced the end and made a new handles with some 1800's mahogany left over form a Mandolin repair and cut some leather.  Valves were cleaned.  They weren't too bad considering the state of the lever ends.  Following a re-pad and valve and a fettle it does what it is supposed to do very well for a learner and although I have to learn my (song) tunes by ear I haven't found one that I can't get to the notes for yet, despite the limited number of buttons.  I have not re-tuned it yet but have tuned the flat reeds ( there were 5 ) up to 452 so she plays well in her original range.  I don't envisage wanting, for now, to be playing with others and if I get good/confident enough I might look out for a 48k already tuned for the purpose.

 

It sit's beside my wife's Clover.....broken end, pre-repair first.   The repaired end is French polished, but not stained......it makes  me look more competent because I know to pick it up leftie lighty ? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

A beautiful looking instrument, Wolf.

 

I decided against the Crane system when I started thinking about duet systems recently as there don’t seem to be many high end Cranes available. Instead, I went for the MacCann system. I’ve just received a beautifully restored one and I will post a picture soon.

 

Steve

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