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Tunning Brass


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I have aquired a lachenal, C/G, mahogany with brass reeds. Its currently tuned in old pitch about(433). I do have a couple of other, nicer C/G concertinas.

My question is, is it worth the effort to retune to 440? And secondly, would it be possible to retune, (with a good deal of "shuffling,") to G/D? I have some limited experience with reed tunning with mixed, improving results. But I have the impression that brass is more difficult to work with than steel.

Thank you, I would appreciate any input. JH

Edited by Fdracula110
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The problem going to modern pitch will be in the higher notes where the metal is already very thin. It is easy to wreck a thin reed. A good tuner could do it, but I'd play it by itself and leave it in old pitch. G/D would be out of the question in my opinion. The reed lengths are so far off. If you want a G/D, sell this C/G and look for one.

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I have one on the bench at the moment, Dana is right, but over the years I have re-pitched plenty of brass reeded instruments to A=440, it takes time and patience and a 600 grit diamond file and at least one visit to Chapel within the process, especially the English system's upper octave

 

Dave

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Thank you so much. I'm retinking my project. I'm leaning towards mostly reshuffling positions in another, steel reed 30 button and purchasing the additional reeds needed to covert to G/D. That way I can label, preserve and keep the original C/G available.

(I hope)

Edited by Fdracula110
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You will still have the same difficulty that Dana mentions that reeds for GD are longer and the reed frames are wider. If you want a quick way to appreciate the difference just try moving your existing G row reeds to the C row.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thank you for the sound advice. I have taken it and found a different concertina.

You've likely saved me a lot of time and expense. I'll definitely check here first when puzzled by my next project.

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  • 2 months later...

Just doing a Brass reeded English. I'm a raw beginner to this, (so please correct me if I'm wrong so others can learn!) but so far I reckon for every 5 swipes of a file for steel you only need one for brass and a tiny tickle when you are in the rarified atmosphere at the high end, but it seems it will comfortably go from old pitch to concert. Also, and I'm sure this has been said plenty of times before but the reed is likely to be slightly lower in pitch in the concertina than it is on the bench. In my case if you tune 5 cents high on the bench it'll be pretty good then reassemble the box and fine tune with a second pass. So you definitely need a tuner that reads out Cents. I bought a Seiko SAT501 seems fine to me. I've made up an aluminium plate with a cropped off nail pushed in to it, the cropped off nail is to push the reed out from underneath so you can get the feeler gauge under it. Hope this makes sense.

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