Repair advice for inherited 1957 Lachenal

[John Adamson]

Repair advice for 1957 Lachenal

 

Hi,

I have inherited a 1957 Lachenal concertina which has 3 treble keys with sound issues.

The bass keys are fine and the bellows look like new with no leaks.

If I can repair these issues I will sell it as a working instrument with the view to getting an English instrument. I used to play one in the 60's during the folk revival and would like to take it up again.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zigz2wst0jiizc2n6ympc/concertina_keys_view.jpg?rlkey=80o5gktuz9adjvis0kmu4d5zw&dl=0

Above is view of treble keys:

Key1=slow and low volume on the push

Key2=Very low on the push and low on the push

Key3=No sound on push , ok on pull

 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mg2amytpzpe5wpwe3n1ar/concertina_chamber_view.jpg?rlkey=sdo92xzcrfzep24z2ixggqub0&dl=0

Above is view of treble chamber:

Questions are:

1. Are A, B supposed to be like this?

2. C,D,F looks like the valve slots were taped up then cut. What should it have there?

 

Any advice would be appreciated

 

Regards

John (Charlestown, Scotland)

[alex_holden]

1. The pull reeds and at least one of the push reeds are missing from chambers A and B. Since you don't mention any buttons aren't working on pull, maybe those chambers are redundant. That would make sense because it has 13 buttons and 13 chambers with reeds in them.

 

2. That's strange. You'll have to remove the white paper and fit the correct size valves instead. I wonder what problem they were trying to solve when they added the paper? The missing valves on the top side of the pan don't really explain why some push reeds are sounding quietly though. They would cause the pull reeds to be quiet. There may be other problems we can't see in the one reed pan picture.

 

BTW 1957 might be the first four digits of the serial number, not the year of manufacture.

[John Adamson]

Thanks Alex .... so how old might this be?

[Theo]

You need a bit of experience to fix the subtle problems you've described.  You will probably do just as well selling or trading it in as it is.

 

There's another two digits of the serial number on the red pan making 195632 which would be from the early 1920s

[John Adamson]

Thanks a lot Theo , maybe I will just sell or trade as is

[Tiposx]

If you are considering selling, you could try the “buy or sell” part of this forum.

[Stephen Chambers]

7 hours ago, Theo said:

There's another two digits of the serial number on the red pan making 195632 which would be from the early 1920s

 

You're very close to what the dating-project data gives Theo, which is 1919.