This piece of basswood will be part of the reedpan/action board section. There will be two pieces of wood glued together with the grain at 90 degrees.
These are photocopies of reedpans that will be used as a template to cut the working reed pan. I have lots of these patterns. C/G; G/d; six sides; mini concertinas etc. I keep a record of all the interesting instruments I have build over the years. I still have to design new patterns regularly
Patterns tacked to the basswood
with 3m Super 77 spray glue, my favorite!
This will be the first and easiest of the piercework/scroll saw tasks. I am drilling the holes for the scroll saw blade.
Blade in place, ready to turn on the juice. I once did this with a jewers saw....never again. For I now own a.........
HEGNER SCROLL SAW!! By far
the best I have ever owned.
I could do TV infomercials for Hegner. I slap wore out a Delta and some other off brand. The Hegner works great all the time. My only complaint is that the dust blower sends the sawdust right back at the operator. Hmm. otherwise a great product.
The saw blade must be removed, placed through the pierceing and reinstalled for every cut.
That does get tedious.
Reed pans cut and ready to glue to action board
Well now, this isn't hide glue
is it? No it's plain old PVA
And into the antique press. I believe this is called a nipping press. It is very handy for concertina building. You will see it again when we get to the bellows building section. I bought this for $150 on EBAY. Most of the cost was for the shipping. It's very heavy. It also arrived broken! The hand wheel was in pieces. Cast Iron is hard to repair I hear. I glued the pieces up with JB WELD, a grey looking two part epoxy. It has held for years!
A photocopy pattern for the top. This is a Jeffries style pattern. Very elegant I have always thought.
I once tried to make my own patterns.
In retrospect, they were absolutely crude and vulgar yet I did build several instruments with those ugly patterns. What hubris. If you have one, consider it a collectors item.
A nice joint, even if I have to
say so myself.
Lets get ready to fit the glued action/reedpan into the maple frame, shall we?
I trace the frame onto the reed
pan
Cut the reed pan to size with
the scroll saw. Don't worry, I never get it exactly right.
Glued, dressed and ready to
install
A very bad shot trying vainly to show how the grain is glued up at 90 degress angles to prevent movement of the wood in varying humidty.
Now here is a proceedure that has cost one or two potentially nice concertinas. I have to trim the excess wood from the reed pan and make sure the lip is dead flat.
whew, I am glad that is over.
