Leather valves cut short

[Nigel Champion]

I have a 1928 octagonal Wheatstone Baritone/Treble English concertina needing some work on its leather valves. The highest 5 or 6 of notes have both their valves cut short exposing some of the opening.

 

I believe this is original.  Was it done to avoid excess pressure on such tiny "brass" reeds with those large bellows?

 

All the Best

Nigel

[catswhiskers]

Nigel

I am not an expert but I have done some repairs on a few vintage Anglos.  In each case there were no valves at all on the very highest reeds and it looked as though they were made that way.  I am sure some more knowledgeable members will chip in and explain why.

John

[Mike Acott]

one of the main reason is to improve the response of the very smsll reeds where air loss is not a large problem, this commonly seen on a lot of unrestored top insruments of different systems.

Mike

[Jake Middleton-Metcalfe]

In some cases when this is not done the high reeds won't sound at all, its because the air pressure just causes them to choke too easily - as due to the size of the reed its set very low comparatively to the lower pitched reeds. If you partially cover the slot it allows some of the air pressure to escape through that slot (passing through the reed on the other side without causing a sound) and the reed wont choke. On some instruments you see the chamois gasket removed from the high reed chamber end partition - if I remember this is done for the same reason. 

 

Its just one of the old tricks of the trade people used to employ - it works though.