Grinding Accordion Reeds To Fit Traditional Reed Pan

[squeezyjohn]

Hello - first post here! I joined up to buy the Jones 34 key D/G anglo on the buy & sell but have been reading around here a lot.

 

Anyhow ... I'm an anglo player with a melodeon playing background, and my main instrument is a 49 button G/C Jeffries (I've heard much debate as to whether it is a converted duet or not and still haven't got to the bottom of it) ... anyhow - many of the extra buttons on the left hand side are additional low note drones. On the new D/G Jones anglo (which is just a standard 30 key layout with drones and novelty buttons) - I found myself particularly enjoying the lower chords it produces, but lacking some of the notes for 'bass run' passages, especially a low A (low D transposed in to G/C language)

 

I've always found the pull D at the bottom of the left hand G row of most anglos a bit of a weird thing as it's replicated on the C row anyway so I thought that the best solution for me would be to replace the reed with one an octave lower to get that low D on the pull (only it's a low A as I'm doing this with a D/G concertina). My first question - is this a thing many people have tinkered with? It's a very useful note and it's replacing a duplicated note.

 

So - obviously getting hold of concertina reeds that will fit in a particular slot of a reed pan is far harder than buying and replacing accordion/melodeon reeds so I was just looking for a reversible solution to try that note out in that position. Fortunately I have a huge stash of old accordion reeds from many years of tinkering with the other type of squeezebox so I figured playing around couldn't hurt. I identified a vintage hohner reed plate with the note I required and which was of a similar reed length to the original and cut it in half and filed down the zinc reed plate to the same dimensions of the brass concertina reed shoe it was replacing (they were of comparable thickness)

 

I'm well versed in the debate which surrounds the sound qualities of accordion reeds in hybrid concertinas and I most definitely side with those who say the "je ne sais quoi" of a real concertina reed in a traditional pan has yet to be replicated with accordion reed technology. So imagine my surprise when this experiment turned out to give such startlingly good results. Granted I am talking about one of the breathier, slower-speaking low reeds on a Jones concertina, but I honestly cannot hear any difference in volume, response or tone between the original low G reed and this cut down Hohner accordion reed! I really feel that the fact that this accordion reed is mounted in a more traditional manner goes a long way to account for the more concertina-ey sound it is now making. My second question is simply: have I just invented something (unlikely!) - or is this an established technique for adapting the mass-produced accordion reeds for concertina use? I know from this experience that cutting and hand filing an accordion reed plate down to the size and taper is slow work - but it could certainly be sped up with the use of a basic power saw and grinding machinery.

 

[Patrick McMahon]

I think you'd need to kit out a whole concertina with reeds made that way to judge for sure. One note might not give the 'feel' of what a full instrument would sound like. But for sure, the mounting of the reeds IN the wood, rather than on top of it, seems to have an effect.

I thought it was the wood acting as a sounding board, like the top of a guitar. But that was just a pure guess. Others are of the opinion that the wood absorbs certain frequencies that are originally generated by the reed, and changes the sound that way.

Maybe a bit of both is going on.

 

As far as hohner reeds are concerned, the modern ones are mounted in aluminium frames. The quality of that can vary, and affect the sound. Wheatstone made some with ally frames and they aren't as highly valued as the brass ones. Italian manufacturers offer standard, or dural aluminium, which I believe is harder and gives a clearer sound.

The old hohner frames were zinc, I think, which might be better than the cheaper aluminium.

 

There's also another difference in concertina reeds, and that's the shape of the slots that the reed sits in. In accordions, the walls are parallel, and in concertina there's a taper, they open up slightly as the reed descends.

I think this gives a slight voice to the note, so that changes slightly as it progresses.

You might not notice it on a single deep note, but on a whole instrument, it might become apparent.

 

OR, yes, it could be the way to go.

Only one way to find out. Do a whole concertina.

[squeezyjohn]

I do have the reeds ... but do I have the time??? It certainly would be an interesting experiment.

 

I know that most modern accordion reeds use aluminium - it's only the particular vintage of Hohner reeds that I used which have the more old-fashioned (and better sounding) zinc. I know it's possible to buy accordion reeds with brass or zinc plates new though ... the Harmonikas company in the Czech republic even advertise 'concertina' reeds sold singly on brass 'shoes' but riveted in place.

 

I only planned to experiment with a single note and then replace the original reed ... but given that one of the big difficulties with modern concertinas is that hand-making reeds is prohibitively expensive for low to mid-ranged instruments and that most hybrids don't sound or respond like ones with traditional concertina reeds - I wondered if this was the way to go - or if anyone had already done that experiment.

[Patrick McMahon]

The makers of "hybrid" concertinas are getting better and better at imitating the sound of traditional reeds.

And it's so close that some people prefer the hybrid sound, and the playing characteristics.

 

If they added the extra work of machining the reeds and reed pans in this way, they might be straying into the price bracket of the concertinas with traditionally made reeds. They might find it hard to compete in that market, purely because of the value that people put on the construction heritage.

 

Having said that, I'd love to see someone give it a go.

[squeezyjohn]

Well - as it's completely reversible I'll see if I can find reeds to match the length and pitch of the G row and maybe have a go at grinding them down to see whether the sound and response is consistently similar to that of real concertina reeds. Then I can directly compare the tone with the D row.

 

Of course we're not talking Jeffries reeds here ... it's an old Jones that's been reconditioned - 1860s as an estimate from the serial number

[Patrick McMahon]

I wonder what it would sound like if someone went in the opposite direction, and waxed in some concertina reeds into a Hohner?

Probably a lot easier, though it wouldn't tell you necessarily what would happen in the reverse direction.

 

I already know from my reed tuning rig that the reeds sound a lot different, outside of the concertina body. Much more metallic.