Santa Ana Winds

[maki]

The weather around here has been near zero humidity.

An interior high sends dry desert air to the coast.

Bottom line is that I can't play my concertina.

Anyone get similar conditions?

[Geoff Wooff]

I can understand that your Pipes might not like this lack of humidity but in what way does it effect you Marcus, which is a Hybrid concertina as I recall ?

[Dana Johnson]

When I visited his shop in 1995, he was using reeds he'd had specially made by some accordion reed manufacturer. They were individual reed shoes that had a stepped back relief milled into the shoe, but otherwise had no back relief angle. They were mounted on the reed pan in a fashion similar, if not identical to the traditional dovetail slot. It has been too long to remember if they were in dovetails or screwed down. In any case at that time, they weren't dual reed plates mounted on top of the chamber walls as are most hybrids. They might be subject to similar problems as traditionally constructed concertinas. This could include leakage, lots of loose reeds. On the whole, I thought they were rather well made by a very nice man.

[maki]

My Marcus is steel reeded, but I don't worry about the reeds.

It's the sound board that's a concern.

Normal humidity around here is 40-60%.

Which perfect for pipe reeds, wood instruments, and strawberries growing.

Edited November 28, 2014 by maki

[JimLucas]

Normal humidity around here is 40-60%.

 

But, as you note, there can be exceptions.

 

I remember one week (about 50 years ago) in Pasadena where the low temperature all week was100° F. The radio was reporting the relative humidity as "less than 1%", because their measuring device only went down to 1%, but was still moving when it hit bottom. A friend put a cup of water on his window sill, and within half an hour it was empty. That was an amazing week, as the hot air rising from the ground got moving so fast that it punched a hole in the inversion layer and carried all the smog away. I got a view of mountains that I was told hadn't been visible from that spot in almost 20 years.