Cloudy Days and Concertinas – Part III

The rain drops blessed me again today.  As much as I want to get out into the garden, I have gotten comfortable spending productive days inside the house while the Oregon rain makes gentle noise outside.

You might think someone who loves musical instruments as much as I do would have music running full blast form my stereo while I tinker on my interests inside.  Actually, the opposite is quite true.  I enjoy the sounds of the house and also of my mind as they both creak away in the drone of the drizzle.  The sounds of silence.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love music, but these days I think I need more quality time with music, especially recorded music.  Playing music is a little different.

Painting Music

I have used the analogy of painting for almost all of the “art” that I dabble in.  Cooking to me, is just like painting.  There is color and texture and depth in cooking, it is not just about the color of flavor.  I think of music in much the same way, although I’m more inclined to pick up one of the many instruments I have strewn about the house and spew musical paint wildly through the air then I ever would find myself using a paint brush.  Oh… and you know I would love to spew paint too.  Hey, we all oppress ourselves in our own way.

I do need to repaint the bedroom …

In the last couple days, a new color has found its way into the air particles here in my house.  Not a particle that would smell good, or find itself splattered on my walls or scratched up wooden floors; nope.  These particles are the kind that make the hairs in my ears dance, literally.  Colors that I am excited to say I have helped to shape myself.

The Last of the Concertina Adventures?

If you have missed the previous parts of this story, there have been two.  The first part was more of my favorite, it tells the story of a mystery and a very seductive and elusive instrument.  The second part tells the story of how I found the instrument that I will be describing in this post, “the concertina”.  I have yet to name “the concertina”, so this name will have to do for now.  In this post I will be sharing some of my adventures that happened while fixing the concertina.

I am adding this section of the story to help anyone, who like me, may want to perform a similar task of restoring or rebuilding an instrument like the concertina.  I have found much advice and help on the internet, some better than others, so I thought I would add a little bit more support here.  Many of the instructions on the internet supply the advice, “Don’t do it!”.  I supply the advice of: if you are comfortable with what you can and might lose in changing an instrument, move cautiously with each step, research each step, and move ahead with your fixes.  Of course, make sure it is your instrument to change!

I guess what I am really trying to say is “proceed at your own risk.”

I am also adding some pictures here from what was my process. If I had some of these pictures I think my process would have been more easier, well, perhaps a bit less scary.

Fixing the Concertina

As you might be able to tell from this picture, when I first brought the concertina home from the store it was not in the best shape. The buttons were pushed in, but when I attempted to play the bellows, notes sounded.  The bellows did appear to be to be in pretty good working order, which gave me the most hope.  When I bought the instrument the condition of the bellows were my number one concern.  After my research and working on it, I had learned that bad bellows might not be the worst of problems, but I’m glad they seem to be pretty good shape.

I found a few of wonderful concertina resources which I do recommend: www.Concertina.com and www.Concertina.net were very helpful.

There was no description of what company made this instrument on the instrument itself, so I went to the internet to see if I could find some information.  I found a article that described my instrument and the only writing on it (other than the number found inside) was “Made in Italy”.  The instrument was made in the 1960’s and was made by an Italian company called “Riccordi”.  There were actually a couple people working on this very type of concertina and noted some of the issues they had with them.  Very good news indeed.

The “Wiggle”

Some of the problems that I saw with my newly found instrument were very common with this model of concertina.  One problem was that the design used a little rubber tubing-like object for dual purposes for the button action.  The dual purposes were: one, holding the button on the action itself, and two, allowing movement on the action.  The movement on the action required to allow the buttons to work and not get stuck in wooden housing is only what I can describe as “just enough wiggle”.  With out this “wiggle” the buttons would just get stuck again.  When you are working with the buttons it is hard to recognize that they actually require a little movement, and not less, in order for them to work properly.  The dual purpose of the little rubber parts actually makes me wonder of “planned obsolesce” of the design. I can’t imagine that it was long before the rubber lost it’s ability to stay in place while keeping the “wiggle”.  Not allowing the button to stay in place would cause it to push into the instrument like the first picture above.

I found two references on the Internet that recommended replacing these little “rubber” parts a with model airplane fuel line.  I had worked on replacing mine before I found the information so I used a different solution.  My solution was to use very thin strips of cardboard with Elmer’s glue.  I wrapped the lower metal part of the button by about halfway, then glued it in place with Elmer’s.  This carefully placed paper on the button would allow the “wiggle” it needed. I then added just a dot of glue from a glue gun to keep the button in place on the “action”.  The glue also allow the “wiggle”.  I carefully cut away on the glue-gun glue to shape it so it fit properly with the instrument housing when placed above the button action.  This seems to work real well. My real concern for this part of fixing the instrument was to be able to make modifications that were not permanent if I could.  I really wanted any of these modifications to be reversible and fixable at a later time.  I also wanted to keep as close to materials that would be used to make such and instrument and that were available when the instrument was made.

Leather or Mylar?

This particular instrument is an Anglo Concertina. It uses reeds to produce sounds, much like a harmonica. It is diatonic, so it produces two different sounds per reed depending on if the instrument bellows are pushed in or pulled out. Most Anglo concertinas use accordion reeds to produce sounds, these accordion reeds are held in place using bee’s wax.  Pretty neat trick, using bee’s wax to stop air from escaping between the reeds and the instrument.  It is also traditional to use leather valve covers. These covers help produce the second sound on the reed. These covers should rest flat against the reed in order for them to play correctly.  As you can see in the picture, the yellow leather reed cover definitely needed to be replaced.

As much as I would have loved to use leather, the only leather replacements for the valve covers on the internet I could find were $60, this was twice as much as I purchased the instrument for.  I had started to make my own valve covers by using some shoe leather: a process that would take me hours possibly weeks had I continued it. Then I happened upon some information from a person who had run into the same problem along with some information on possibly how to solve it.  Honner, a company who is known for their harmonicas still make a concertina as well as an accordion.  Honner has replaced their leather valve covers for mylar instead.  Yay! This was terrific news.  Someone also recommended that using old floppy disk mylar worked just fine.  I had to try it.

I carefully removed the old valve covers using an exacto knife and canned air to gently blow away any old glue and debris (better not use your breath as it may cause corrosion). I then used a dab of rubber cement at the very top of the mylar to adhere it to the reed.  Again this choice of glue would allow me to reverse the fix quite easily and would not cause any damage to the reed.

Cleaning the Reeds

Another tip that I thought would be VERY helpful to see in a photograph was using a dollar bill to clean the reeds. The instrument had one dead reed and a few of the reeds had a touch of corrosion on them.  Since even a touch of debris or corrosion can cause a dead reed, I thought the tip I found on the internet on how to clean them with a dollar was excellent.  It is hard to find better lint free paper to use to clean reeds and nearly free.  Well… I just so happened to have washed a dollar in a pair of my jeans earlier in the week!  It worked perfect.  Be VERY VERY careful though when trying this.

Other Small Fixes

I spent a little time fixing the leather seal, again using Elmer’s.  I adjusted some bent button actions.  There were small fixes here and there and I’m still considering more. One is fixing the wood that has been stripped away from the screws.  These screws help the seal a bit and help the buttons fit in place as well.  I would have to say I probably got 90% of the instrument to a point where I’m comfortable.

A Few Last Mysteries

There were a few mysteries that I had to answer with this instrument.  I don’t know yet if the answers are right though.  The first was a single reed that when I checked it with a tuner played different notes than was documented for that particular reed to play.  The reed itself seems to play ok.  This I just need to do a little bit more research on.  If anyone has any possible reasons for this please comment.

The second mystery was that the higher notes did not have valve covers, and they didn’t appear to every have them. This seemed a little strange because the instrument (as seen in the picture ) has an “air button” just above the handle. This specific button is typically used to allow the instrument to open and close its bellows without what I believe is called a “drone” note.  With the higher notes not having a valve cover, those notes would always be played when the bellows were opened.  My solution was just to add valve covers to those reeds.  This made the instrument play as I would have predicted.  No drone.

How Preposterous!

The number one question that friends had asked me when I first got the concertina a couple weeks ago was “but have you ever played one?”  The answer was a resounding “No.”  I guess at one I would have asked the same question myself.  I actually remember as a kid, thinking to myself “that’s just wrong” when I was told that someone would tune a piano when they didn’t know how to play one.  Now I can completely understand why it is not “wrong” at all.

Imagine the first instrument of a type being built, they didn’t have people who had ever played them either.

My friends were not being rude by asking the question.  I guess I just had tinkered enough with other instruments that I thought I was ready.  As some of my friends from SL might have guessed, I always wanted to rebuild a piano.  This was definitely a less risky proposition… but that is a story for another day.

I guess what I really wanted to say is… the only preposterous thing you can do is to not do something you really want to while not really knowing why you shouldn’t.

Spewing Sound into the Air – The Final Adventure

I guess with any instrument, the last adventure with it would be the one that stops it from making a sound.  I’m looking forward to a few more adventures with this concertina.

Oh.. and before I forget, thanks for joining me on this adventure…