How Good Were The Old Cheapies?

[Stephen Selby]

Can anyone give an opinion on just what could be expected from the old, cheaper model Lachenals from the 1910-1920s? E.g., 20 button, brass reeds, stained pear (?) wood ends. Would they have been decent responsive instruments when they came out of the factory?

 

I ask this while wondering how much effort should be put into repairing some old instruments.

[Stephen Selby]

Bump?

[Stephen Chambers]

I think the lack of response may because nobody (normally) bothers with the brass-reeded old cheapies. They take just as much, if not more, work to fix as their steel-reeded equivalents, and generally go wrong (going out of tune and breaking reeds) sooner and more often.

 

Having said that, I'm planning on fixing up a 30-key mahogany-ended one with brass reeds in the next week or two, but it's in mint condition and I'm going to replace all the reeds with steel ones from another that's thoroughly wrecked...

[OLDNICKILBY]

It is worth repairing these old nails , but only to get the experience so that you do not wreck a decent Tina later on

[David Hornett]

I took pity on an old c/g two row brass reeded Jones last year. All I had was the action board and reed pans with reeds, 6 were bent /broken -- I suspect it had passed its latter life in a kid's possession. I rebuilt the instrument and replaced the brass reed tongues with steel, the resultant instrument is a very nice sounding D/A, certainly well worth the effort if one wants a challenge of making reed tongues.

 

With steel reeds the pitch is uniformly one note higher for the same profile (NOTE: the instrument was originally in A453 tuning, now in A442 ). I just wish it was a three row.

 

 

David

[Stephen Chambers]

Not that brass reeds are necessarily all bad, it's a question of the quality of the reed making too.

 

So the brass reeds in Lachenal cheapies were machine profiled in wide strips on a milling machine, then cut (to rough tolerances) into individual tongues, and the tuners/reed makers just took what they needed out of boxes and assembled them. Steel reeds, on the other hand, were much more labour intensive - they had to be shaped and profiled by hand, so that the quality depended very much on the skill of the individual craftsman.

 

But sometimes (rarely) you'll find top-quality instruments with brass reeds, usually made for tropical climates, in which case the reeds would be of the highest quality and made by hand like the steel reeds.

[SteveS]

But sometimes (rarely) you'll find top-quality instruments with brass reeds, usually made for tropical climates, in which case the reeds would be of the highest quality and made by hand like the steel reeds.

The Aeola in my avatar is one such instrument with non-ferrous reeds - has a lovely warm sound, great for song accompaniment - now I'm thinking of sorting the tuning to meantone (1/5 comma perhaps)

[Stephen Selby]

Thank you all for your contributions.

[nicx66]

A side by side comparison. The reeds resting atop the valves are brass lachenals from a later model cheapie. The shiny reeds are from my concertina, a "tidder", as it were. They are a broad brass reed. I bought the cheapie for loaners, whoops.

Edited March 17, 2016 by nicx66

[Jake Middleton-Metcalfe]

even the 20 button steel reeded lachenals are not really "serious" musical instruments in my opinion. I got one when I was about 17 when I wanted to branch out from the melodeon. I sent it back to the dealer in the end as it was just not upto much serious playing. I expect that they were just the cheap instruments of the day.

 

Really though an old damaged one is worth repairing just for fun/learning.

[Stephen Selby]

Nicx66, thanks. What conclusion should I draw from that?

[nicx66]

I guess what I learned is not to make assumptions. In my case, the assumption I made was that: should I need to replace a reed on my concertina, I could do it with a loaner reed from the cheapie. This happened when one of my reeds went drastically out of tune and needed to be replaced. That is when I discovered that the standard lachenal reeds indeed did not fit correctly as replacements for the broad reeds. Luckily for me, I was able to mail the damaged reed to Greg Jowaisas and he was able to find/tune/and fit a suitable replacement (Jones) for a very reasonable price. My conclusion is that this onehttp://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-George-Jones-concertina-for-restoration-/131747777463?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&si=GjA5kLGTus1k1vQSDOb5b1XOaJY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=ncmay have been better suited for loaners for my concertina ,though even that is questionable.

For brass reeded 20 key instruments, these Jones' usually go pretty cheap. I don't, however know about the reed quality compared to the other makers. The above instrument certainly looks to be Jones cheaper model and of good quality construction, i.e. worth saving.