Repair And Tuning Of Lachenal Anglo Concertina, Salvation Army Model

[ekku]

I am renovating a Lachenal anglo Salvation Army model from ca. 1896. I am lowering the pitch to a=442,

but I need help in defining the keys (32),as the pitches are so way off. So far I have not found any schemes for this peculiar model. Can anyone help?

[Stephen Chambers]

Does it have the letters SA worked into the fretwork? If so, those Salvation Army ones are commonly in the keys of Ab and Eb, though Anglos made for other purposes are more commonly in C and G, and various other key systems are also possible..

 

So you need to determine the key of the instrument.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Stephen Chambers

[ekku]

It seems to be in Ab and Eb. I am completely new to concertina. I don't understand the logic of the keys. Can you help me with a scheme so that I get it tuned right.

[Geoff Wooff]

Why not use an automatic tuner, which dectects the notes you are playing... tune it into your current pitch and make your own chart of the scheme by identifying each note with the Tuner.

[Theo]

... tune it into your current pitch

Which will typically be around A=453 for a salvation army instrument.

[Alex West]

Ekku

 

If you send me a PM with your regular e-mail adddress, I can send you the note pattern for a 32 key Ab/Eb Jeffries which will probably be similar to the Ab/Eb Lachenal you're working with. It should certainly be very similar in teh 2 lower rows but teh accidentals on teh top row might be different.

 

What you may find is that your instrument is in one of the old pitches - for example if it's in old Philharmonic pitch of A=452, then the notes will sound nearly a semitone higher than on a modern A=440 tuned piano

 

Alex West

[Bob Tedrow]

I restored a SA concertina a while back. Here are some images

 

http://hmi.homewood.net/salvationarmy/http___hmi.homewood.net/Salvationarmy.html