Steel for reeds, a UK supplier needed

[Mike Jones]

Hello folks

 

I need to re-tongue some broken reeds that are at of the small size, e.g A5 to E6. Jake at Wolverton Conceetinas sold me some tongue steel a year or so ago that was .53mm or 20thou (imperial) thick which was fine for the larger reeds but is really too thick for small reeds The ends of the tongues I have recovered measure .20cm or 8thou.

Anyone able to help? I only need enough for 6 or so reeds.

I have tried clock spring material and several other types of steel but none of them work very well.

Thanks

 

Mike

[Pistachio Dreamer]

Hi Mike,

 

I've found www.georgeibbotsonsteels.co.uk helpful in the past, but anywhere you look you will be subject to a minimum order quantity. With the aforementioned it wasn't so bad at the time - 1kg, which for the 0.53mm was a sheet approx 1m by 30cm - but too much perhaps for your purposes.

 

If you only need to do 6 or so reeds my advice would be simply to do more filing of the 0.53 stock. Down to 0.2mm (I assume you meant?) is not too difficult given the small area involved. If you were making multiple sets it might be handy to have some thinner stock, but for a few one-off mends it's certainly possible. I actually owned a Crabb in standard C/G that used an approx 0.5mm stock for every reed.

 

Hope that's of use,

Paul.

 

 

 

[Theo]

You could perhaps harvest old piano accordion reeds and reshape those.

[alex_holden]

If you drop me an email I can send you some of the 0.35mm stock I use. You will need to file a tapered profile from approximately 0.25mm (10 thou in Imperial) at the clamp down to about 0.06mm (2 thou) at the tip. A sharp file helps.

[Mike Jones]

Thanks Guys,

helpful ideas, much appreciaed.

 

Mike

[Chris Ghent]

If you have the right file getting your .5mm down to .25 or 2 will take about 90 seconds per reed.

[alex_holden]

4 hours ago, Chris Ghent said:

If you have the right file getting your .5mm down to .25 or 2 will take about 90 seconds per reed.

 

The file I mostly use for profiling these very small reeds is a "Bahco 1-100-04-3-0 Hand Smooth Cut File 100mm (4in)". I also use various fine diamond files for tuning once I've got it somewhere close. If you start with stock that's close to the right thickness to begin with it reduces time and effort, and you get more reeds from the file before it goes blunt.