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Line drawing Aeola fretwork


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Hello, 

I am am planing a little experiment. I am going to make a set of metal sides for my wooden ended 1918 aeola and see how the sound changes. 

I have no illusions about how much effort this is going to take, so it might as well end up looking right. 

 

To that end I would like to ask if anyone might be able to share  a good line drawing of metal fretwork for an aeola of this period? I am shooting for a design that is quite open. 

I suppose if I can't get a line drawing, a true head on picture of both sides might make a good starting point as well. 

 

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4 hours ago, Dissonance said:

I probably need to add that I am taking about a 56 key EC, although the number keys could be altered easily in the design.

 

Should we assume you're working with a 56-key extended treble, not a tenor-treble or a baritone?  The size of the ends does make a difference.

 

18 hours ago, Dissonance said:

I am shooting for a design that is quite open

 

Are the original ends "quite open"?  And are you just trying to see if you like the result of a single experiment, or do you intend to form an idea of how the different end materials affect the sound (volume and tone)?  If the latter, you should really be copying as precisely as possible the fretwork of the original ends,  in order to "eliminate" potential effects due to openness (and even patterning?) of differing fretwork  patterns.

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Hi there Dissonance,

 

are you aware of Alex's Mullering work? One of his conversions actually involved replacing metal ends with wooden ones (https://www.holdenconcertinas.com/?p=1480). On his instagram presence, Alex did comparisons between the two and found the sound changes to be minimal. The customer and Hendrik also commented on the effect of the different materials. Of course, there are a number of factors that make the comparison difficult (such as the ratio of open against closed space that may affect the differences in sound as well).

 

It would be interesting to compare your results with Alex's! I had contemplated asking him for both metal and wooden ends on my #3 but abandoned the idea when it appeared that the audible difference would be rather small.

  

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6 hours ago, Dissonance said:

Yes, tenor treble EC. 

You are right, my experiment is modifying too many parameters, to be a decent scientific experiment.

I plant to make two moves that I think shift towards brighter and louder.

 

Here are links to a couple of old threads that might interest you (though maybe you've already seen them?):

 

https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/20426-wanted-wooden-ended-english-tenortreble/

 

https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/18061-metal-ends-vs-wood-ends-do-they-make-a-difference/

 

The discussion about baffles is interesting, but as far as I know, nobody has yet invented elffabs to achieve the opposite effect.  ;)

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On 11/4/2019 at 2:52 AM, Dissonance said:

I would like to ask if anyone might be able to share  a good line drawing of metal fretwork for an aeola of this period? I am shooting for a design that is quite open. 

I suppose if I can't get a line drawing, a true head on picture of both sides might make a good starting point as well. 

 

A suggestion:  Trace the existing ends (direct? via photograph? whatever you think is best), and then just enlarge the holes in the traced fretwork, keeping as close as you can to the existing shapes.  Freehand?  Are there graphics programs that can do that for you?

 

A potential problem:  If you want to increase not only in the area (un)covered by the individual holes but also the amount of the end covered by the fretwork pattern -- often more covered over the lower-pitched reeds, but sometimes covering the entire circumference of the end uniformly, -- then you would need a different pattern.  But it may be difficult to find an Aeola with uniform fretwork, especially a tenor-treble.

 

But good luck with your project.  I'm always interested in the results of people's experiments.

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Photograph the ends making sure you are absolutely vertical above each one ( use a plumbob from the camera to establish this). Also use a longer lens, not a wider one. Place a ruler in shot parallel with the top of the end. Take the image and insert it into a vector drawing program. Use the ruler to scale the drawing to the exact size.  Draw around the piercings and mark the boltholes. 
 

Print the image (be careful you don’t lose scale on this step) in gray on white (works much better than black on white), glue it to the blank and cut it out.  

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