Tuning rig - impact of chamber around reed ?

[Don Taylor]

28 minutes ago, d.elliott said:

Also be aware that the 'sound in the box' values may be the same between the reeds on the chamber side, and the flat side of the reed pan

I took all of the reeds out of one side of a TT EC in order to work on a warped reed pan.  I put them in a box without taking note of which side they came from.  Once I realised what I had done I went into denial mode until I have a lot of long, dark winter days to sort them out again.

[Theo]

It is good to learn from one's own mistakes!

[Leonard]

Great to see so much practical knowledge gathered here, over and over again....

[Sprunghub]

Thanks for the support/advice.....I am getting there.  Somewhat slow progress, but on the left hand side ie. 15 buttons, I have all the 'pull' notes done and the bottom row on the push, too.  It has strained my brain to be honest, so not much 'fun', but learning rarely is.  Soldering has gone ok on the larger reeds.

 

Just glad it is only 35k's.....

[Wolf Molkentin]

17 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

I took all of the reeds out of one side of a TT EC in order to work on a warped reed pan.  I put them in a box without taking note of which side they came from.  Once I realised what I had done I went into denial mode until I have a lot of long, dark winter days to sort them out again.

 

gives you lots of time to work on the warped reed pan too ?

[Sprunghub]

Left hand side finished, in much quicker time, ....I have discovered ( although I guess it is obvious! ) that because she is consistently 'in tune' with herself at abut 45 cents # inside the box and 65'ish outside, if I bring the reed down fairly 'blind' to about 25 sharp on the table, back in the box she is either right or close enough to fine fettle.  I can recommend the Eze-lap Diamond sharpener stick file Fine/600 grit for the task for the inexperienced.

 

Have had great fun annoying the wife who, unlike me has a musical ear by playing octaves across the box out of synch.   

 

All done now, very grateful for all the help.  I'll post up a pic of my table tomorrow when it is light in case it helps any more beginners out there.   

 

Edited November 20, 2018 by Sprunghub
Update.....

[Sprunghub]

I thought I would put up a couple of pictures of the tuning rig I knocked up to encourage any other potential newcomers to trying 'tuning' for themselves.  It is a proper 'scratch built' job, put together by someone with basic skills.....more Val's old knickers and sticky backed plastic than mortice and tenon and dove-tails, but it worked well.  The only 'glitch' was that I put together a prototype 'jig' in 3mm ply, like Alex's alloy one, in about 10 minutes on Sunday morning, which worked really well, then spent the rest of Sunday fabricating one in acrylic which sounded awful, so that went in the bin and I stuck with the ply one.  The bellows came from Ebay for £20, and the top and bottom 'plate' are the same ply as the 'desk', all of which was sitting around from a previous repair job.  I routed the edges to take the rim of the bellows and then taped with some extra wide insulating tape.  The bellows lifts in and out of the table.....the top plate is over-size and sits, on top of the hole which is just a little bigger than the bellows.  The 'cording' is to draw the bellows up, the weight of the bottom pate is enough to make it fall at a steady rate and make the reed speak at a consistently throughout the fall.  The heatsink sheet and fine solder and diamond file stick were all easy enough to find on-line as was the steel shim which I had from a previous (bike) job.

Alex's recommendation of the TonalEnergy Tuner was the real G-dsend to a total Novice like me. Simple, accurate and easy to work to from the phone.  It was hard /slow work to start with, but by the time I got to the second half of the right hand side I was finding I had the hang of it to a great extent.  

     

[alex_holden]

Well done!

[Theo]

looks good. One useful refinement you can add is a rocking pedal linked to the bellows so you can have both hands free while working.