Valve Curling

[Richard Morse]

Are not the correct leather terms for skin orientation "flesh side" and "hair" side?

 

FLESH SIDE is the side of the skin being next to the flesh ( flesh is the fat and muscle between the skin and the bone)

I wonder if most people would think of FLESH as being a person's SKIN. Afterall, we are all familiar with "flesh" colored crayons (which are now called "peach"). Amongst the many definitions of flesh at Dictionary.com is "the surface of the human body; skin". At the least, the term FLESH is contradictory and confusing.

HAIR SIDE the part we shave in the morning

Maybe YOU do! I've had my beard for 35 years!

 

-- Rich --

[stella24]

Anyone care to venture an opinion as to why changing the valves would change the tuning. It makes no sense to me.

While I don't know the mechanics of it, the pitch of a reed is partly dependent upon the airflow. Whether it's the pressure, speed of air, flow path (cushions, direction, eddies?).... It's nearly impossible to secure a new valve with exactly the same amount of vent covering as the old one, and the new one will be different in flexure. Generally speaking the more restrictive the valve is to the vent, the higher pitched the reed will become.

 

Granted we're only talking a few hundredths of a semitone, but even that is quite noticeable.

 

-- Rich --

i also am not sure about the effect of valves on tuning. in my limited experience i revalved a nice new model lachenal, and it was unplayable with the new valves before tuning. (but i believe it was probably poorly in tune prior). Made some valves from sheep leather for a chidley/wheatstone english and it was very much in tune with itself after the job! (it was unplayable before that, as was the lach, bellows and key problems). just borrowed some valves from an old accordion and replaced some on a cheap italian tina and can hear no difference... comments?

[Dave Prebble]

Hi all,

 

for what it is worth........

 

While restoring a 32 key Lachenal a few weeks ago, I fell to thinking about this issue. I have nothing to add to the factors discussed above regarding the tendency of valve changing to cause pitch change , but decided to quantify just how much difference it can actually make.

 

I recorded all pitch values for the instrument on a standard tuning chart before any work was carried out.

 

Changing nothing else, I revalved the whole instrument and repeated the pitch check. I took as much care as possible to replace with valves of similar size, thickness, stiffness and texture.

 

The test revealed that pitch shifts of between 0 and ten cents occurred with an overall average of approx 6 cents. No obvious pattern emerged that could be related to reed size or pitch... in all, pitch shifts seemed to be quite random.

 

Regards

 

Dave

Edited February 8, 2007 by Dave Prebble

[Dave Prebble]

Hi,

 

All this talk of hairy side in and hairy side out puts me in mind of s song called

"The Ancient & Old Irish Condom"... to the tune of 'Rosin the Beau'

 

the final verse runs...

 

And I thought that I heard Brian whisper

As he stood in the fire's rosy light

"Well, you've had yer own way long enough, dear...

'Tis the hairy side outside, tonight."

 

I shall refrain from further comment and leave the rest to the imagination

 

Dave P

 

ps ..... If your curiosity gets the better of you .... try Googling

[Paul Read]

Hi,

 

All this talk of hairy side in and hairy side out puts me in mind of s song called

"The Ancient & Old Irish Condom"... to the tune of 'Rosin the Beau'

 

the final verse runs...

 

And I thought that I heard Brian whisper

As he stood in the fire's rosy light

"Well, you've had yer own way long enough, dear...

'Tis the hairy side outside, tonight."

 

I shall refrain from further comment and leave the rest to the imagination

 

Dave P

 

ps ..... If your curiosity gets the better of you .... try Googling

 

I thought Valve curling was a winter sport but I didn't know that googling was

[Richard Morse]

it was unplayable with the new valves before tuning. (but i believe it was probably poorly in tune prior).

But you don't know by how much.

Made some valves from sheep leather for a chidley/wheatstone english and it was very much in tune with itself after the job! (it was unplayable before that, as was the lach, bellows and key problems).

It's hard to tell what is going on with your projects as you're "unplayable" seems to refer both to the action and bellows AND to the pitch being off. Again we don't know what the pitch was before you did the work. Without a comparison and numbers it's hard to draw much of a conclusion.

just borrowed some valves from an old accordion and replaced some on a cheap italian tina and can hear no difference... comments?

Again, there's no data. It's possible that your ears aren't very discerning. Dave's experience noted here reflects mine - that there's a few cents difference given very careful selection and installment of replacement valves. Sometimes the case is that the old valves are of considerably different and/or poorer quality than the new valves which typically results in the pitch shift being substantially greater.

 

I should also note that there are many people who seem perfectly happy with boxes with 15 cents pitch variation while others get exasperated at 3 cents.

 

-- Rich --

[McIsog]

A 15 or 30 cent pitch variation between 2 notes an octave apart can provide for some interesting beats in the resulting tone. So if you are playing in octaves long enough to hear those beats it may well drive you crazy.