My First Restoration with Real Concertina Reeds

[Peter Smith]

6 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

Why would you need the second brass plate around the valve?

To be honest, I am not sure as I hhave never used it  I guess it could be used for larger reeds.

[SteveS]

13 hours ago, Peter Smith said:

The air hole under in the metal plate is 23mm x 3 mm. Mark at Concertina Spares said the plate is laser cut. Maybe he would sell you just the plate.

I have one of these tuning bellows - I use a piece of masking tape to cover gaps when tuning smaller reeds.

[Peter Smith]

2 hours ago, SteveS said:

I have one of these tuning bellows - I use a piece of masking tape to cover gaps when tuning smaller reeds.

Good idea. I will give that a  try.

[Bill Crossland]

16 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

Why would you need the second brass plate around the valve?

The brass plate around the valve is for protection and cosmetics!

[Steve_freereeder]

On 8/31/2019 at 5:32 PM, Theo said:

I work on accordions and concertinas.  I have a simple tuning bellows with a couple of holes on top where I can place an accordion reed block.  When tuning concertinas I place the complete reed pan over the hole and close the side of the reed chamber with a finger.  It works well, but I don’t know anyone else who uses that method.

Yes - I discovered this method for myself a few months ago!

It does indeed work very well. ?

[Theo]

Pleased to hear I’m not alone!

This method is possibly a little slower than  using the traditional concertina bellows where you can file the reed in situ.  On the other hand I think that tuning in the reed pan where the reed is in its own home gets the pitch closer to that inside the instrument. 

[Steve_freereeder]

On 9/3/2019 at 7:54 AM, Theo said:

...On the other hand I think that tuning in the reed pan where the reed is in its own home gets the pitch closer to that inside the instrument. 

Yes, agreed. In fact I have found that the pull reeds especially (in between the chamber walls) are often very close to the pitch inside the instrument, such that little or no offset is required. To me, that is worth the slightly slower working method, compared with the traditional concertina tuning bellows.