Slow Food Concertina Making,5.

[chris salty-dog vonderborch]

Some of you may recall my postings of several months ago, concerning my long-term project, the building of a baritone English concertina. The construction was interrupted by 2 1/2 months wandering the Indian Himalayas. However, I am now back in my Tasmanian workshop, and the project continues.

 

I have just made the bellows and set up the action. Now comes the exciting bit...making its first sound!! I intend to be extra meticulous with the reeds, endeavouring to attain very close tolerances for playability and tonal quality. So I designed a reed shoe filing jig which ensues that the slots are very accurate. It has worked well for the first 6 reeds, so I will post a photo of the jig soon. Accurate slots made it relatively easy to fit the steel reeds, with the desired tolerance of less than 2 thousands of an inch. But the first reeds took me a long time, as I am somewhat out of practise! In fact, I only made and fitted 2 on day one! I am getting faster with practise, and only have 90 of the little things to go.

 

The good news is that the concertina sounds really sweet, which is what I was aiming for!!

[Henrik Müller]

...

So I designed a reed shoe filing jig which ensues that the slots are very accurate. It has worked well for the first 6 reeds, so I will post a photo of the jig soon.

...

Argghhh - keeping us in suspense!

 

That is going to be interesting - I've had the privilige to

see Geoff Crabb's jig(s) in action and that was very inspiring!

 

/Henrik