Wanted - some reed plates for an old German concertina.

[BrianJ]

I need some reed plates from an old German concertina to repair my great grandfather's instrument. It has no real monetary value but I would very much like to hear it as he did!  The plates are wedge shaped zinc with brass reeds but steel reeds would be equally acceptable.  Happy to buy a complete box with reeds like this.  

[Theo]

 

 

 

I have some old German reed plates.  Don't know what key, but you can have them for postage cost.

 

 

 

I also have some reed plates from old German melodeons.  They are twice as long of course, but I can't see whey they could not be cut in half.

 

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Theo

[BrianJ]

Thanks Theo - good idea!  I'll try to find out which notes/plates I need then message you.  Anyone else have anything?

[alex_holden]

A good harmonica repairer (e.g. John Cook) could probably make and fit new reeds to your existing plates.

[BrianJ]

7 hours ago, alex_holden said:

A good harmonica repairer (e.g. John Cook) could probably make and fit new reeds to your existing plates.

Perhaps true, but the cost would be much more than the instrument is worth.  I've already contacted a couple of repairers and they told me they would not be able to make new brass reeds for these plates.  I'm pretty confident I can fit and tune new reeds so I'm looking for some plates with reeds attached.  I'm thinking that Theo's idea of using melodeon plates might be the way to go. 

 

[BrianJ]

9 hours ago, Theo said:

 

 

 

I have some old German reed plates.  Don't know what key, but you can have them for postage cost.

 

 

 

I also have some reed plates from old German melodeons.  They are twice as long of course, but I can't see whey they could not be cut in half.

 

 

Thanks Theo - I've left a message on your website.  I would very much like the plates you have offered - I'm sure I can use them to get  the old box playing!  I'll phone you tomorrow if that's Ok. 

[simon ds]

Interesting to see the project you’re working on Brian, and thanks for posting the photos both of you. This is fun!   

Is it just the one reed that’s gone? I can see one open slot.

And are the bellows sewn at the top, it’s difficult to see.

Good luck!  And looking forward to hearing a tune.

Simon

 

ps. My baritone concertina project is coming along, I have to look at some badly damaged harmoniums this week. Not sure if the reeds will work (maybe too big?) but I now have pretty much all the other materials, apart from spring wire that is.

Edited January 26, 2021 by simon ds

[BrianJ]

1 hour ago, simon ds said:

Interesting to see the project you’re working on Brian, and thanks for posting the photos both of you. This is fun!   

Is it just the one reed that’s gone? I can see one open slot.

And are the bellows sewn at the top, it’s difficult to see.

Good luck!  And looking forward to hearing a tune.

Simon

 

ps. My baritone concertina project is coming along, I have to look at some badly damaged harmoniums this week. Not sure if the reeds will work (maybe too big?) but I now have pretty much all the other materials, apart from spring wire that is.

Hi Simon.  It's actually 5 dead or missing reeds.  The bellows are really good.  So far I have sorted the cracked reed pan by splinting the cracks, made 4 new springs from 0.7mm hard brass wire, made a new air release button and fitted some new straps.  Theo has sent me some old reed plates with usable reeds - what a star!  

Pleased to see that you are making progress.  You can make springs either from hard brass wire (as original on mine) or from steel 'piano' wire used by model makers. 

[simon ds]

Nice!

I did some experiments this evening with guitar wire but the B string’s a bit fine. Would work at a smaller scale.

Found two black leather jackets for bellows, one’s a biker jacket, thick cow skin and a bit rippled, the other’s lamb skin and very soft and thin with the tops of the arms that are about 60 cm. Nothing else more than 45 cm. Not sure if that’s long enough to go around the six strips on the bellows.

Very difficult decision though, my daughter said, ‘Dad, that’s a nice leather jacket!’ 
I said ‘it’s going to be a nice concertina!’ -but I’m not starting till I have all the materials sorted out.

 

Need to find out the average short diagonal internal dimension of a concertina box (yours?) I’m going to build a couple with the wood I found on a dumped French dresser (furniture). Not sure what the wood is but I like it.

 

Another one is to find a source for those very small brass hinges and nice slim brass locks.

 

So what’s the first tune you’re going to play on it?

Do you have an idea of your great grandfather’s probable repertoire?

Edited January 26, 2021 by simon ds

[BrianJ]

Guitar strings are too thin for springs.  You need 0.7mm hard brass wire or 0.6mm piano wire.  Leather suiatble for repairing bellows needs to be very thinner than jacket leather - you can buy strips from various eBay sellers. 

 

First tune?  It will have to be a shanty - he was a sailor then a coastguard! 

 

The wood you have is probably sapele.  Most boxes are made with an internal width (not diagonal!) of 6 1/2" - how is your school geometry? 

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by BrianJ
added info

[simon ds]

Ok great thanks I’ll look for piano wire. I did a little experiment with clothes peg springs but they don’t seem to have a very good memory.  

The leather jacket is very smooth and 0.5-0.75mm thick. It must have been worn by a French lady who was very large (fortunately for me). I did some calculations and there must be enough for three concertinas bellows.

My geometry is still really good! Fifty years later, ha ha.

I did lots of other calculations and even remembered that sin theta is the opposite over the hypotenuse. Everything going well, then I ‘mis-remembered’ that tan  theta equals O over A. (I thought it was cosine.)

 

Anyway, a good mathematics workout. I used this 

https://www.omnicalculator.com/math/hexagon

To double check, and work out why my hexagon was a bit odd.

The short diagonal of a hexagon is the distance between two vertices with one vertice between them. And the long diagonal runs through the centre point connecting two vertices. (I’d forgotten that)  

 

Here’s a shanty he may have known.

 

 

 

[Don Taylor]

1 hour ago, simon ds said:

Ok great thanks I’ll look for piano wire.

Try: https://www.fortepiano.com/

 

I use their phosphor-bronze wire for springs.

[JohnPeter]

Just read this topic. Hope this helps. First post by the way.

I have just rebuilt my Great Grandmothers concertina. Just finished tuning and setting the reeds today. It’s an old German Anglo 20 button with 2 reeds per note (octave).  Suspect it was quite reasonably priced when new and similar to yours. No idea of the age but old .... suspect from Saxony.

The construction is very basic but it sounds good to me now it’s tuned and set up (which has taken a while). Seals well.

Anyway I had to replace reeds and I thought I would post in case it was of interest.  I used old German accordion reeds (10 button ... 20 Reed ...  long plates) The reeds in cheaper accordions of the same era are quite heavy and there is plenty of adjustment  when it comes to tuning. You just have to select the right reed width/length to suit the aperture on your concertina plate. Drill out the rivets. I then bolted them in (back to front) and set with UV epoxy.

See pictures.

Thought it might be of use. Let me know if you want any more info.

 

Also .... general thoughts after working on one of these old cheap concertinas ... 

 

To get an instrument working again after say a 100 years is a complete joy.  Well worth it!

Also having worked on one I think that the older and cheaper German  models were actually pretty amazing. Really simple solutions to difficult dynamics. Ok they are cheap but they worked .... They took music around the world and to the masses.... and some are still being played today😊

 

Hope this helps 😊

Edited March 17, 2021 by JohnPeter

[BrianJ]

Well done JohnPeter!  I have just replaced one reed (four to go!) in my instrument and now need to tune it.  I used a reed from an old accordion block sent to me by top man Theo Gibb - thanks Theo!  It seems the accordion reeds are much thicker than the original concertina reeds with the added complication that the originals seem to be 'german silver' and the replacements are brass.  I've never tuned a reed before so have been reading a lot about how to do it.  How did you tune yours? 

[JohnPeter]

Hi BrianJ,  replacing the first one is the worst.  The next four will be easy

I only had two that had actually broken and needed replacement.  The rest were recoverable.  What surprised me was how robust they were as long as you took care not to pull them about too much.  Most just needed cleaning and resetting.

In terms of tuning it was the first time I had tried it and it is pretty easy.  Like you I read a lot and then I practiced on an old reed in a old reed block. I use peterson tuner on my iphone. You do need a set of bellows set as a tuning table but the first time round I used the concertina bellows and some plywood (took about 30 mins to knock up).  Once I got into it I moved to a set of accordion bellows (From the accordion the reeds came from .... ebay for about £10) with a bigger area which worked better.  I also made a mount out of mount board.  This distributes the air movement and makes everything easy.

I will post some pictures .... 

[JohnPeter]

Picture of improvised tuning table below.

 

You can see the white reed plate mount on top. Made from some foam board I had lying around. The complete reed plate goes on top of this mount over a single hole in the table. The mount is sealed with fine sticky backed foam tape top and bottom (the black line). This gives a pretty even pressure/flow rate across the apertures and allows a full 20 note plate to be sounded/balanced.

Same done for concertina.

 

I terms of tuning you will have read all the advice (all good) but just in case it helps here is what I did  ..... excuse the nerdy summary but it’s the way my mind works:

 

Determine all current actual and target frequencies i.e map each plate and mark up. It’s really important as I nearly messed up! It does get confusing otherwise ... push pull etc.)

To do this:

Reed plate on mount

Move from one aperture to next

Sound all in turn and map actuals. (The Peterson software is good as you can see the harmonics sort of)

Turn over and repeat  (push/pull)

Then check all against the note frequency table.

Set targets against actuals to suit key etc.

 

NB At this point I didn’t really write things down well enough and had to repeat the whole process (one of my big learning points)

 

Also when doing this I realised how important the gap is from reed to plate. Some reeds didn’t sound initially and with a gentle twang and adjustment (careful bending) they came to life.  It made me realise how important the gap is in terms of ease of sounding a note.  Once I had got each reed tuned to pitch then a lot of the “tuning” was getting the notes in balance in terms of “attack” I.e ease of triggering vibration. They all varied. Balancing them made the whole concertina more balanced. The gap does need to be the thickness of the reed. By the way a scalpel is invaluable.

In terms of tuning the reeds. You do need a thin shim to support the reed when filing/scratching.  I used an old bass reed and filed it down.

 

Tuning is pretty straight forward:

 

Sound the reed check how far you have to go and which way

Lift off and lay on solid top (edge of sounding table)

Shim in

File/scratch (base of reed to lower frequency - tip to increase)

Keep the file really flat on the reed at the base. 

Always file away from the rivet/bolt.

Sound reed ...

Repeat .... repeat  .... repeat .... slowing down for a perfect landing ..... on pitch  😊

 

After that it just monotonous ...... but ..... also pretty fantastic when the reed hits the perfect note.

You will find that the accordion reeds need quite a bit of filing.

I used a flat needle file and a diamond impregnated riffler for final adjustment.

It just takes time and patience.

 

Anyway I hope that helps. The good news is that once you can replace reeds on these plates if you damage one or mess up you can just pop a new one in!

 

I also can’t stress enough the importance of setting the attack (gap) of each reed. It makes a massive difference.  The concertina I have sounds two reeds at the same time on each note an octave apart. Getting the bass note to precede the higher note at a given pressure makes a massive difference and having the notes sound equally across the full set of notes in the key at a given pressure makes a big difference.

 

My only worry now is that the reed plates have been in and out of the concertina so much that it might fall apart 😂

Only joking. 

 

I actually think the construction of these old German concertinas and accordions are pretty amazing and they are pretty robust.  OK the materials of construction are not brilliant but they work and its a testament to those that made them that there are so many around the world. 

 

Anyway please excuse the ramble.    Hope it helps.

 

BTW Sealing is important it’s worth buying some thin foam strip. Getting the concertina solid in terms of holding air makes a big difference. Mine leaked but is now a completely sealed ball of air until you gently press a note. Its worth working on.

 

It has been my first go at working on one of these and it has been really enjoyable. Any more questions then please ask. 

 

I'm working on a 10 button accordion/melodian now with similar plates 😀  Two voices with a wet tuning.😀  It's addictive.

 

John

Edited March 18, 2021 by JohnPeter

[BrianJ]

Many thanks for this excellent guide to replacing and tuning reeds in these German boxes.  I agree that they are a bit crudely made but sound fine if set up properly.  Mine is a Lachenal look alike externally but typical Saxon reed plates etc inside.  Using your advice I have just replaced one reed by riveting it in using a tiny nail as the rivet.  Now for the tedious tuning!