"new" Concertina

[njurkowski]

The time finally came. My Jackie, while great instrument, conspicuously lacks a fair number of notes that I find myself increasingly needing. The fact that I will be (hopefully) graduate school bound this coming fall means that my savings are a bit tied up right now (to the point that I could afford only about three hundred dollars or so) - so I took a gamble and bought a "like new" 48 key English Stagi from the good people on the internet. A few days and a couple-hundred dollars dollars later, my "like new" concertina arrived, in playable condition, no less. A few of the reeds were a little out of tune, but with the help of some of the old threads in this forum (and an old modeling file), I managed to get them playing well with others again. There is really only one other thing that keeps me from fully enjoying this isntrument at present, and was wondering if anyone might be able to diagnose the problem: three notes on the left hand - B, F, C (all in a row), while sounding, produce a slight hissing noise (as air escaping). The notes hiss on both the draw and the push, and the F does it the worst, by far. Any ideas what the cause of this is? I can be fairly handy with such things, and not afraid to do a little surgery as long as I'm well informed.

 

 

Thanks!

[njurkowski]

As an addendum, I just took the reeds out of their bee's wax, and low and behold, the holes on that row don't really line up with the reeds. Could this be what's causing the noise? I'm not really sure what to do about that, beyond trying to reposition the reeds so that they sit over the holes a bit better; I don't really feel like tearing the wooden parts out (which are glued down)and repositioning them. I play the didgeridoo, so have plenty of beeswax around. I'd probably be ok stopping up any gaps I create between reeds (or between the reeds and the framework) with that, right?

 

Nick