Marien Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Some use sycamore, some may use pear or maple. What would be the best wood type for a reed pan and why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon C. Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 Some use sycamore, some may use pear or maple. What would be the best wood type for a reed pan and why? I would think they used sycamore, quarter sawn, as it has so much cross grain that it almost acts the same as plywood, this keeps from warping and gives it stability. As was mentioned on another post that Maple is in the same family as sycamore, but I haven't varified that. I have some French pear wood, and it looks pretty unstable. Just my 2 cents. Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henrik Müller Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 Some use sycamore, some may use pear or maple. What would be the best wood type for a reed pan and why? I am no expert, but I have a good feeling about maple - put a file to it and it feels almost like hard plastic. I would also dare to make a sandwich of two layers at 90 degrees (breaking a rule here?). I guess the goal is to get it as stable and dense as possible - with a bit of acoustic background, I am no romantic when it comes to sound and exotic woods /Henrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marien Posted January 9, 2009 Author Share Posted January 9, 2009 I would also dare to make a sandwich of two layers at 90 degrees (breaking a rule here?). I guess the goal is to get it as stable and dense as possible - with a bit of acoustic background, I am no romantic when it comes to sound and exotic woods /Henrik Before posting I had a couple of things in mind for the selection of wood: the ease to cut the wood in any direction and durability. For the sound it doesn't make a difference, as long as the reeds fit the pan perfect, or does anyone think otherwise? For example, does a reed pan in Carpatian spruce make sense? Cutting a reedpan could be a pleasure when applying willow, it will not split, whatever direction you cut it. But it is too soft and not durable enough. If I look at sycamore read pans, the wood looks quite the same as maple, in density and structure. Some old jones reed pans looks like pear, or is it another wood type he used? Someone told me that pear is quite stable over the years, it does not shrink a lot. About multi layers, it may be okay for 2 layers like Henrick suggest. Ply wood is stronger than plain wood, it is the reason that it is used for the tuning bar in modern pianos. For a reed pan the reed slots needs a perfect fit for the reeds. This is difficult with cheap multi ply wood, but it may be done if there are only 2 layers (a reed touches only one layer). It reminds me of the plastic reedpan in a concertina I saw somewhere on this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henrik Müller Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I would also dare to make a sandwich of two layers at 90 degrees (breaking a rule here?). I guess the goal is to get it as stable and dense as possible - with a bit of acoustic background, I am no romantic when it comes to sound and exotic woods /Henrik ...About multi layers, it may be okay for 2 layers like Henrick suggest. Ply wood is stronger than plain wood, it is the reason that it is used for the tuning bar in modern pianos. For a reed pan the reed slots needs a perfect fit for the reeds. This is difficult with cheap multi ply wood ... Yep - that's why I am thinking 2 layers could make is resonably warp-free, without interfering with the reed frame slots. I learned my lesson with plywood /Henrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henrik Müller Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I would also dare to make a sandwich of two layers at 90 degrees (breaking a rule here?). I guess the goal is to get it as stable and dense as possible - with a bit of acoustic background, I am no romantic when it comes to sound and exotic woods /Henrik ...It reminds me of the plastic reedpan in a concertina I saw somewhere on this forum. Oh, yes. I forgot, in the last post. You are thinking of this one. /Henrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon C. Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I would also dare to make a sandwich of two layers at 90 degrees (breaking a rule here?). I guess the goal is to get it as stable and dense as possible - with a bit of acoustic background, I am no romantic when it comes to sound and exotic woods /Henrik Before posting I had a couple of things in mind for the selection of wood: the ease to cut the wood in any direction and durability. For the sound it doesn't make a difference, as long as the reeds fit the pan perfect, or does anyone think otherwise? For example, does a reed pan in Carpatian spruce make sense? Cutting a reedpan could be a pleasure when applying willow, it will not split, whatever direction you cut it. But it is too soft and not durable enough. If I look at sycamore read pans, the wood looks quite the same as maple, in density and structure. Some old jones reed pans looks like pear, or is it another wood type he used? Someone told me that pear is quite stable over the years, it does not shrink a lot. About multi layers, it may be okay for 2 layers like Henrick suggest. Ply wood is stronger than plain wood, it is the reason that it is used for the tuning bar in modern pianos. For a reed pan the reed slots needs a perfect fit for the reeds. This is difficult with cheap multi ply wood, but it may be done if there are only 2 layers (a reed touches only one layer). It reminds me of the plastic reedpan in a concertina I saw somewhere on this forum. Maple is probably close enough. I think laminating will cut down on the reed pans ability to resinate. I would think it would be similar to a sound board on a guitar, where the vibrations of the sound are amplified by the sound board (spruce). Having a laminated or plywood reed pan, having layers of wood in different directions, could cut down in the resinance. But it may not matter at all, or be nociable. I think the quality of the 1/4 sawn lumbe makes a difference on it warping. The little lachenal was like a potao chip, the better made Jones is still true, in fact it looks like it was just made last month. There may be other factors, such as the dryness of the wood when they constructed the concertina, or if it was abused by the ownder, i.e. left open for a period of time. That is a interesting rred pan Henrik, what is the material made of? Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henrik Müller Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 ...That is a interesting rred pan Henrik, what is the material made of? Jon Perspex - I just happened to remember that it was in Shay Fogarty's Mrs. Crotty '04 report. It may belong to Mark Davies, for all I know - we can ask him /Henrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marien Posted January 9, 2009 Author Share Posted January 9, 2009 ...I would think it would be similar to a sound board on a guitar, where the vibrations of the sound are amplified by the sound board (spruce). Having a laminated or plywood reed pan, having layers of wood in different directions, could cut down in the resinance. But it may not matter at all, or be nociable. The sound is not amplified by a guitar top, but it is resonated. If the vibrations of the top and the string work together the sustain is longer. In a good guitar all frequencies are resonated proportionally. In a concertina the reed pan is not constructed to resonate. It is the size of the reed chamber that matters more than the wood type I think. If I listen to DDR accordions, it is difficult to hear when read chambers are made out of plastic. I think the quality of the 1/4 sawn lumbe makes a difference on it warping. The little lachenal was like a potao chip, the better made Jones is still true, in fact it looks like it was just made last month. There may be other factors, such as the dryness of the wood when they constructed the concertina, or if it was abused by the ownder, i.e. left open for a period of time. A lachenal potato chip warp can sometimes be repaired, at least I succeeded to do that once (it still plays somewhere in Ireland now), I took of all the reeds and chamois leather, semi cooked it "au bain marie" for just a few minutes and clamped it on a newspaper (to catch the water) on a straight table for 2 days. Afterwards I added new chamois leather and put the reeds back in, had to make some reed chambers air tight, put some new blocks to support the reed pan and everything seemed to work fine. Was the lachenal reed pan maple or sicamore? Do you know the wood type of the Jones reed pan? If I remember well the reed pan Henrick added was made out of perspex, it looks the same but it isn't not the ice we have here these days (brrr). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon C. Posted January 11, 2009 Share Posted January 11, 2009 ...I would think it would be similar to a sound board on a guitar, where the vibrations of the sound are amplified by the sound board (spruce). Having a laminated or plywood reed pan, having layers of wood in different directions, could cut down in the resinance. But it may not matter at all, or be nociable. The sound is not amplified by a guitar top, but it is resonated. If the vibrations of the top and the string work together the sustain is longer. In a good guitar all frequencies are resonated proportionally. In a concertina the reed pan is not constructed to resonate. It is the size of the reed chamber that matters more than the wood type I think. If I listen to DDR accordions, it is difficult to hear when read chambers are made out of plastic. I think the quality of the 1/4 sawn lumbe makes a difference on it warping. The little lachenal was like a potao chip, the better made Jones is still true, in fact it looks like it was just made last month. There may be other factors, such as the dryness of the wood when they constructed the concertina, or if it was abused by the ownder, i.e. left open for a period of time. A lachenal potato chip warp can sometimes be repaired, at least I succeeded to do that once (it still plays somewhere in Ireland now), I took of all the reeds and chamois leather, semi cooked it "au bain marie" for just a few minutes and clamped it on a newspaper (to catch the water) on a straight table for 2 days. Afterwards I added new chamois leather and put the reeds back in, had to make some reed chambers air tight, put some new blocks to support the reed pan and everything seemed to work fine. Was the lachenal reed pan maple or sicamore? Do you know the wood type of the Jones reed pan? If I remember well the reed pan Henrick added was made out of perspex, it looks the same but it isn't not the ice we have here these days (brrr). Oh, I ment a Dobro instead of a guitar... Actually I was thinking more down the lines of resonating then amplifing. I tryed to straighten out the lachenal but it just turned back into a lays potato chip after about a week, so I made a new reed pan. As far as what the Lachenal reed pan is made of, I have no idea, looks like low grade sicomore, it might be that it was not 1/4 sawn? the Jones is Sicamore. We call Perspex, Plexiglass in the states. Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Johnson Posted January 11, 2009 Share Posted January 11, 2009 (edited) A few points here, First, If you are in England and Europe, What is called Sycamore there is a specific type of maple. (Acer pseudoplatanus) In the United States, Sycamore is that tree with the fuzzy seed balls and the peeling white and grey brown bark.(Platanus occidentalis) It is vastly different as lumber and NOT suitable for reed pans. I've found that the difference between "soft" maple species and "hard" Maple species makes quite a difference in tone everything else remaining the same. The european "sycamore " is somewhere in the middle of these. good pieces of it being fairly hard and dense. I once tried some Big Leaf Maple which is prized for tone wood for violin family instruments, and was quite surprised at the raucous ( not good ) tone it provided. My method of reed pan construction allows me to make dimensionally identical reed pans , which makes wood comparisons fairly easy. For my instruments I prefer Sugar maple because It gives me the tone I like and is readily available quarter sawn here in the US. There are other woods that can make good reed pans, so you may not limit yourself to the harder maples. Colin Dipper uses other woods sometimes in some instruments especially the ones with laminated reed pans for stability when sending them over seas. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it seems more like something like Spanish Cedar or something like that. Properties like density, hardness, vibration damping coefficient and such have quite an effect on tone, though that is more with respect to harshness, brightness, loudness , responsiveness and dullness etc, rather than whether the instrument has a "nasal" sound or a clarinet like sound or an oboe like sound etc. which seem to come from other aspects of the geometry and construction. ( and hardly at all from the reeds which seem perfectly willing to change there sound when moved from one type of construction to another.) If you change the species or even the density ( within species this can still be very variable ) you may need to change your dimensions to compensate for the different way the wood reacts. Remember also that with all the chamber walls and the direct physical contact through gasket materials of all the parts, that reed pans do not act like string instrument sound boards, so woods that make good acoustic guitars may not be suitable for concertinas, or at minimum may need to be thicker or thinner to provide similar result. Also, accordion construction is great for accordions, but just because they have reeds too, doesn't mean the materials / construction translates to concertinas of the Jeffries / Wheatstone sort. Stability is important, as well as are good machining characteristics. The wood has to provide a clean durable slot for the reeds. Radially chambered reed pans will warp like a potato chip regardless if left unsupported whether they are quarter sawn or not, though quarter sawn lumber won't do as badly here. Any time a chamber wall runs at all crosswise to the grain, it makes the top side of the reed pan stiffer than the bottom and any shrinkage or expansion of the wood then causes the whole thing to want to curve. My friends and I have done a fair amount of experimenting and have been often surprised at what we've found. By all means experiment. Who knows what great things are out there with so many woods available today. Bottom line is though if you want it to sound just like a good Wheatstone, build it just like a good Wheatstone. ( and be aware that there is more to them than meets the eye so be prepared to spend some time discovering the details that are hidden in plain sight. Wood does make a difference. Dana Edited January 11, 2009 by Dana Johnson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon C. Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 A few points here, First, If you are in England and Europe, What is called Sycamore there is a specific type of maple. (Acer pseudoplatanus) In the United States, Sycamore is that tree with the fuzzy seed balls and the peeling white and grey brown bark.(Platanus occidentalis) It is vastly different as lumber and NOT suitable for reed pans. I've found that the difference between "soft" maple species and "hard" Maple species makes quite a difference in tone everything else remaining the same. The european "sycamore " is somewhere in the middle of these. good pieces of it being fairly hard and dense. I once tried some Big Leaf Maple which is prized for tone wood for violin family instruments, and was quite surprised at the raucous ( not good ) tone it provided. My method of reed pan construction allows me to make dimensionally identical reed pans , which makes wood comparisons fairly easy. For my instruments I prefer Sugar maple because It gives me the tone I like and is readily available quarter sawn here in the US. There are other woods that can make good reed pans, so you may not limit yourself to the harder maples. Colin Dipper uses other woods sometimes in some instruments especially the ones with laminated reed pans for stability when sending them over seas. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it seems more like something like Spanish Cedar or something like that. Properties like density, hardness, vibration damping coefficient and such have quite an effect on tone, though that is more with respect to harshness, brightness, loudness , responsiveness and dullness etc, rather than whether the instrument has a "nasal" sound or a clarinet like sound or an oboe like sound etc. which seem to come from other aspects of the geometry and construction. ( and hardly at all from the reeds which seem perfectly willing to change there sound when moved from one type of construction to another.) If you change the species or even the density ( within species this can still be very variable ) you may need to change your dimensions to compensate for the different way the wood reacts. Remember also that with all the chamber walls and the direct physical contact through gasket materials of all the parts, that reed pans do not act like string instrument sound boards, so woods that make good acoustic guitars may not be suitable for concertinas, or at minimum may need to be thicker or thinner to provide similar result. Also, accordion construction is great for accordions, but just because they have reeds too, doesn't mean the materials / construction translates to concertinas of the Jeffries / Wheatstone sort. Stability is important, as well as are good machining characteristics. The wood has to provide a clean durable slot for the reeds. Radially chambered reed pans will warp like a potato chip regardless if left unsupported whether they are quarter sawn or not, though quarter sawn lumber won't do as badly here. Any time a chamber wall runs at all crosswise to the grain, it makes the top side of the reed pan stiffer than the bottom and any shrinkage or expansion of the wood then causes the whole thing to want to curve. My friends and I have done a fair amount of experimenting and have been often surprised at what we've found. By all means experiment. Who knows what great things are out there with so many woods available today. Bottom line is though if you want it to sound just like a good Wheatstone, build it just like a good Wheatstone. ( and be aware that there is more to them than meets the eye so be prepared to spend some time discovering the details that are hidden in plain sight. Wood does make a difference. Dana Thanks for the info. So why not just use 1/4 sawn English Sycomore? I found some in Torrence, about a half hour from my house. It is a little pricey, at $20 BF. Luckily they had a small piece available, the rest of the stock were large planks. Here is the web site, they primarily sell on the internet, if anyone needs any: http://www.eisenbran.com/ I realize it may be more difficult, in Norway, so you may need to get something close, then compinsate for the differences. It seems that if you have similar density lumber and do a exact copy of the original, this should make a fairy consitant copy. But like the flutes I build it is very difficult to replicate a "sound" of an original. Hopefully, the copy will be somwthing that is your own, and sound decent... Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Marino Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I am very blessed, as just a short train ride north of me there is an excellent lumbar yard that carries a very wide range of hardwoods and exotics with which to work with and the majority is quarter sawn. Right now setting things up to be able to Mill directly from a block of wood the reed pan with the mechanism board as part and parcel. Though looking at dealing with getting the sound to balance well as these current models are hybrid models. Once I get or build the g-code for making the shoes I have sources for both the reed steel and the high grade brass used in modern harmonicas (thinking of doing a brass reeded line as a 80+ year lifespan is not bad for a set of reeds). The nice thing is my wood sources have some beautiful Ebony and Brazilian Mahogany to work with for end pieces. The fun is making sure the filters can handle it for the rough work in cutting out the filigree (I do the finish work by hand as .5mm is still not fine enough for some of the points and corners in the end plate work). The fun I am having is finding a god source of Linen or hemp blend rag board for the bellows and deciding whether to use Richard Morse's style of bellows (and the expense of the frame to do them) or Bob Tedrow's. One thing I am playing with right now is building new bellows for my Rochelle and looking at the options of instead of using leather; using accordion cloth tape and seeing how it functions and it will hold up or a reasonable amount of time (As this is the Instrument I take out to functions where I don't know what the conditions are going to be). Back to the main topic; I have to very strongly agree with Dana as the type of wood will have a strong influence on the sound you get out of an instrument. The physics of it is long winded but very important. With any instrument the materials and their properties bring with them pluses and minuses that must be considered when working with the material. Experimentation, talking to those who work in wood from a generational knowledge base (Sorry, but academia lacks severely in the practical knowledge sense that is passed down through the trades, grandfather was a master wood wright and the knowledge he passed to us has served me well many a time and you can not find it in any book). Find one or two if you can and sit down and ask questions, ask to watch as there is much to learn that words will not tell you. It is like profiling a reed for an instrument or refining a bridge for one of my wifes violins, it is in looking, learning, asking, doing, making a mistake or three and learning from them and going at it again. I went through three blocks of wood before i got the first project my Grandfather had me do right and learned early to measure twice as there is no way to undo that cut and that costs time (which is all money is a commodity for anyways). I am working with maple, sycamore, and oak as the woods that I am experimenting at present. The casing and end woods are these and also looking at high density (hard to work, unfortunately) woods out of South Africa, Australia, as well as the traditional rosewood, mahogany, ebony, and a few others. It is work and must be done carefully as wood can get expensive quickly. Well that is my very ong winded two cents and need to get back to work. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d.elliott Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I am very blessed, as just a short train ride north of me there is an excellent lumbar yard that carries a very wide range of hardwoods and exotics with which to work with and the majority is quarter sawn. Right now setting things up to be able to Mill directly from a block of wood the reed pan with the mechanism board as part and parcel. Though looking at dealing with getting the sound to balance well as these current models are hybrid models. Once I get or build the g-code for making the shoes I have sources for both the reed steel and the high grade brass used in modern harmonicas (thinking of doing a brass reeded line as a 80+ year lifespan is not bad for a set of reeds). The nice thing is my wood sources have some beautiful Ebony and Brazilian Mahogany to work with for end pieces. The fun is making sure the filters can handle it for the rough work in cutting out the filigree (I do the finish work by hand as .5mm is still not fine enough for some of the points and corners in the end plate work). The fun I am having is finding a god source of Linen or hemp blend rag board for the bellows and deciding whether to use Richard Morse's style of bellows (and the expense of the frame to do them) or Bob Tedrow's. One thing I am playing with right now is building new bellows for my Rochelle and looking at the options of instead of using leather; using accordion cloth tape and seeing how it functions and it will hold up or a reasonable amount of time (As this is the Instrument I take out to functions where I don't know what the conditions are going to be). Back to the main topic; I have to very strongly agree with Dana as the type of wood will have a strong influence on the sound you get out of an instrument. The physics of it is long winded but very important. With any instrument the materials and their properties bring with them pluses and minuses that must be considered when working with the material. Experimentation, talking to those who work in wood from a generational knowledge base (Sorry, but academia lacks severely in the practical knowledge sense that is passed down through the trades, grandfather was a master wood wright and the knowledge he passed to us has served me well many a time and you can not find it in any book). Find one or two if you can and sit down and ask questions, ask to watch as there is much to learn that words will not tell you. It is like profiling a reed for an instrument or refining a bridge for one of my wifes violins, it is in looking, learning, asking, doing, making a mistake or three and learning from them and going at it again. I went through three blocks of wood before i got the first project my Grandfather had me do right and learned early to measure twice as there is no way to undo that cut and that costs time (which is all money is a commodity for anyways). I am working with maple, sycamore, and oak as the woods that I am experimenting at present. The casing and end woods are these and also looking at high density (hard to work, unfortunately) woods out of South Africa, Australia, as well as the traditional rosewood, mahogany, ebony, and a few others. It is work and must be done carefully as wood can get expensive quickly. Well that is my very ong winded two cents and need to get back to work. Michael another twopenneth, some of the exotic woods are sensitisers and carcenogenic in thier dust, if you are machining them PLEASE be careful, dust extraction, respiratory protection and personal hygene (this is not intended to as a slur) are very important. I did a lot of wood turning and I am easily affected by certain types of wood dust now. I have to be very careful. Dave E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jewish Leprechaun Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I'm planning on using curly maple, hard maple, and African Padauk for my reedpan/botton part of what the action sits on. Will this make a good sounding reedpan? Also does anybody know the toxicity of African Padauk? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Ghent Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 If this is a first instrument why not stick to woods as close as possible to those used in classic construction? Choose one of the maple family close to European/Sycamore and use it quartersawn for all of the internal parts. Introducing other species and a mixture at that will make it hard to come to any conclusions about the tone of your concertina and its relationsghip to the wood. Its hard enough. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miikae Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 (edited) Interesting info on toxicity of Padauk Here and Here Mike Edited January 15, 2009 by miikae Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miikae Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 Wood Toxicity list Here I had a look in my Wood Dictionary and seeing as it was published in Feb 1938 no mention of toxicity in those days . Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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