Wheatstone reed scaling - piccolo to treble

[4to5to6]

The question about Wheatstone reed scaling has come up again.  I understand Wheatstone only used 3 reed scales over the years: Long, Best and Regular???

 

I’m converting a 5-1/2” 48 key piccolo English Aeola concertina into a treble, building new reed pans.

 

This has been done before.  I have detailed photos of a factory made 5-1/2” treble and also 5-1/2” piccolo that was later sent back to Wheatstone and converted into a treble by them.  Thank you Robert and Bob for your generous help.  

 

Is it true that Wheatstone only had three distinct reed scales?

 

Info or charts on Wheatstone reed frame sizes / tongue sizes, etc. for each pitch would be most welcome to help me figure out what they used and then source some reeds.

.

Edited November 7, 2024 by 4to5to6

[4to5to6]

Photo of three treble C4 reeds attached.  

 

All three reeds are C4 pitch.

 

Frame lengths:

1926 Aeola 1.503” / 38.18mm

1930 RE M4 1.427” / 36.25mm

1856 12.12  1.320” / 33.53 mm

 

Is this Long, Best, Regular reed scales?

 

.

Edited November 7, 2024 by 4to5to6

[4to5to6]

Does anyone have experience with Wheatstone reed scaling?

[Little John]

Is it the overall frame length you're measuring? Some time ago I did a comparison of three concertinas as had. The Crabb was 26.5mm, the Dipper and Wheatstone were both 28mm. That's tongue length, C4.

[4to5to6]

Thanks Little John.  That’s interesting.  Tell me more about the Crabb concertina?  Any photos of it?  How does the instrument sound?   I would like to know more about this concertina please.  I’ll add the tongue length measurements.
 

I’ve been measuring:

- Frame length

- Frame max width at clamp

- Frame thickness

- Slot length

- Slot width tip

- Slot width at clamp

- Tongue width tip

- Tongue width clamp

- Tongue material thickness 

- Tongue thickness tip

- Tongue thickness clamp

- Tongue thickness middle (est)

- Etc.

 

I’ve now measured an Aeola G bass, BT, TT, Treble, ET, piccolo and a few more in between including my prize golden era amboyna tenor treble.  I measured up the reeds from an amazing 1856 12 guinea early treble that Emily Bulteel had and a decent 1930 treble with “medium” or “best” reeds to get the short and medium scaling data.

 

All of these are in spread sheets now and it is extremely interesting to see the different graphs the spread sheets generate.  I’ll try to take some photos and at least attach an example.

 

if the graph curves are perfect, that’s the design.  If the gaps are perfect that’s the quality of workmanship.  The ultimate is to have both.  Non of my measurements take into account the voicing of course which is just as important.  A reed with good voicing will react and sound much better than a reed with perfect gaps and scaling.  And there is also chamber sizing, button travel / air flow adjustments, etc.  Voicing is an art!

 

I’m very busy all of a sudden so haven’t had a chance to process all the data like I would like.  I want to build some more spread sheets that compare all the numbers from the instruments combined to see the similarities.
 

It’s been a very educational project and just handling all those hundreds of reeds has given amazing insights.  On a few instruments, I also measured the wood and other parts such such as pads / pad holes / slot vent lengths, etc. just to see what the graph curves would look like.

 

What would these early Wheatstone employees think if they could see these spread sheet graphs?

 

Has anyone else done this?  I would love to compare results.

.

Edited November 20, 2024 by 4to5to6

[Little John]

17 hours ago, 4to5to6 said:

Tell me more about the Crabb concertina?  Any photos of it?  How does the instrument sound?   I would like to know more about this concertina please.  I’ll add the tongue length measurements.

 

It was a 48-button Crane duet. Aluminium reed frames, aluminium ends. It had a rich, rounded sound.

 

17 hours ago, 4to5to6 said:

What would these early Wheatstone employees think if they could see these spread sheet graphs?

 

Has anyone else done this?

 

I have a graph which I'll try to post. "#4Bass" refers to my Holden Crane bass side. The reeds on that side are standard scale. On the right they are long scale. These are not measured, but are probably similar to "HC2". The Wheatstone is a baritone English. The others are duets.

 

One interesting feature is that the Crabb reeds are all over the place, but you'd never know to listen to it.

 

[4to5to6]

Thanks Little John.  I appreciate the tongue length comparisons.  Very nice.

 

Your Wheatstone and #4Bass have the best curves.  Are the tongue width and thickness curves just as nice?  Wheatstone appears to start out with a fixed set of reed frame sizes (tongue length / width) and tongue material thicknesses then adjusts the profile of the reed tongue to get the right response and pitch.  Curves and workmanship varies.

 

i am trying to figure out why Wheatstone 31xxx concertinas sound so good through all this.  I measured up two 31xxx tenor trebles which are both stellar concertinas.  The amboyna TT is the best and just amazing when I play it. Why???  It draws me in and is so pleasant to play as a musical instrument.  Amazing expression and dynamics.   I can easily play music on it that I fumble through on other ones.  All the reed curves are near perfect as well as the tongue gaps but I think it was Steve Dickinson’s voicing and air flow adjustments that really made the biggest difference.  It is also super clean and well taken care of which helps.  I don’t think the tooling was new on these instruments as some say but it may be the tongue material as others say but I really think it is most likely the quality of workmanship.

My 1856 Emily Bulteel Wheatstone and the 1942 rare war era Aeola I once had have near perfect workmanship as well even though the curves are a bit off and it also shows by how they play and sound.  Both are basically unrestored except for tuning and the 1942 has untouched A440 factory tuning  I still miss that 1942 Aeola treble but it went to a great player.

Edited November 21, 2024 by 4to5to6

[alex_holden]

24 minutes ago, 4to5to6 said:

Your Wheatstone and #4Bass have the best curves.  Are the tongue width and thickness curves just as nice?

 

All my reeds have a different frame size for each pitch. No. 1, 2 and 3 had various experimental scales. The scale I used on No. 4 worked so well that I kept using it for every subsequent instrument, until No. 15, which is a bass. My normal scale has a straight line relationship between semitones and length. On No. 4 and most of my other duets I shifted the left hand reeds a few semitones up the scale, which helps a bit with the balance. The linear scale works well until you get down to C3 or so, then it gets increasingly sub-optimal the lower you go (you have to use very heavy tip weights, which makes them slow and unstable). The improved bass scale I used on No. 15 matches my normal linear scale in the treble range but goes non-linear in the bass range. The reed width also varies with each pitch according to a formula.

 

The thickness profiles are a different matter; I profile the tongues by hand, using a chart from an earlier instrument as a guide. They do vary a bit from instrument to instrument. I have a record of the profiles I used on every instrument from No. 5 onwards. They are all fairly similar apart from the bass range of No. 15.

[Geoffrey Crabb]

Might be of interest, Anglo I'm afraid. Based on later years of making, 1950 on, although some variations might be found. 

REED SIZES Crabb Anglo.doc

Reed tongue dimensions appropriate to slot in each case.

 

Geoff

 

[Little John]

4 hours ago, alex_holden said:

My normal scale has a straight line relationship between semitones and length.

 

Plotting semitones gives a straight line graph, but in terms of frequency the x-axis is logarithmic. The relationship between frequency and length is not linear. If a reed tongue was a uniform bar then (as a cantilever) in free air the frequency would be inversely proportional to the square of the length. Of course it's not a uniform bar, nor is it in free air, so this is at best a rough approximation to a reed tongue. But sticking with that approximation they do agree very well from C6 down to C4, where they start to diverge; the inverse-square formula giving greater reed lengths. This is consistent with your observation:

 

4 hours ago, alex_holden said:

The linear scale works well until you get down to C3 or so, then it gets increasingly sub-optimal the lower you go (you have to use very heavy tip weights, which makes them slow and unstable).