Mini Video: Bellows Test

[Bob Tedrow]

OK,

 

See if you like this:

 

http://hmi.homewood.net/video/bellowstest.MOV

 

 

 

Bob

[Bruce McCaskey]

Well, it's a little boring, but that's obviously by intent. It's also both entertaining and impressive.

 

As far as trying the test on my concertinas, I don't know if I could balance my concertinas upright with their bellows in full extension as you did, though obviously it'd be easy to test the leakage in the hanging test. Of course, this invites the question as to what an acceptable maximum leak-rate might be, and the criteria for determining it.

 

In doing an extension/balance or hang test I would assume that the relative weight of the instrument ends would be a factor if one tried doing a comparison between different maker's instruments. Some are heavier and so would put a little more force on the bellows. Also, some instruments have stiffer bellows than others, and I'd expect that would influence the test results too, especially at full extension or full close if they are reluctant to remain at those positions because of internal stresses.

 

It would seem to me that the most meaningful test is whether the rate of leakage is noticeable when playing, especially (for an anglo) if it limits the ability to play longer runs in one direction of bellows movement or sustained notes/chords. It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on this Bob, that is, at what point do you recommend some action be taken to reduce leakage?

 

Back to the video though, I think it does a good job of demonstrating the bellows extension and how little leakage there is in the instrument, regardless of any qualifiers.

 

Bruce

[d.elliott]

Sorry *.mov don't seem to work on my PC running on XP

 

Dave

[Roger Gawley]

The movie worked fine on this Windows PC, fired up Quicktime.

 

Very amusing and Bob's bellows are much better than mine. And I cannot balance mine vertically. Bob, do you juggle?

 

Cheers, Roger

[Paul Woloschuk]

OK,

 

See if you like this:

 

http://hmi.homewood.net/video/bellowstest.MOV

 

 

 

Bob

tsorry, i got nothing

I too got nothing other than 'done' in the bottom of the screen, until I highlighted the url (i.e. the link address) in the 'address' window of Internet Explorer, then hit the enter key...then it started.

[Henrik Müller]

Great stuff, Bob - keep it coming!

/Henrik