Concertina Repair

[boxplayer4000]

Scholer Concertina.
This concertina, made by ‘Scholer’ in the former German Democratic Republic, has a broken reed which I would like to fix. I understand that the maker is not held in the highest regard in the concertina world but this example is in good order and looking at it from an accordion stand point it seems to me to be a pretty well constructed item.
The defective reed is a ‘D’. If a complete reed plate set cannot be found it may be necessary to consider making a new reed and this certainly raises a few challenges.
Apart from the solution involving the trash can I wonder if anyone out there has any comments?

 

[debra]

Ouch,,, this is one of the main problems with multi-reed reed plates. You dont want to just replace the whole thing.
Some (many?) concertinas actually have individual reed plates. What you could try is to get a new reed for those and put that in. A possible source is http://www.harmonikas.cz/admin/files/ModuleText/43-dix-concertina-sortiment.pdf

 

[boxplayer4000]

Debra,
Thank you for responding.
Am I understanding you correctly when I think you are saying, obtain a new, single reed plate, remove the required reed and fit it in place of the broken one?
The reeds on the defective plate are brass and of a very old design, i.e. the reed sides are parallel. As I am typing I am recalling that I may have very old, parallel accordion reeds, but steel ones in my 'stock' pile. How do you think brass reeds compare to steel ones in performance and sound/harmonics?
Thanks also for the harmonica links which I will look at when I get time.

 

[debra]

Debra,
Thank you for responding. ...anding you correctly when I think you are saying, obtain a new, single reed plate, remove the required reed and fit it in place of the broken one?
The reeds on the defective plate are brass and of a very old design, i.e. the reed sides are parallel. ...

Indeed I am suggesting to get a new single reed plate and move the reed to the plate you have. The new reed will be steel, not brass, but at least it will be rectangular, unlike trapezoidal accordion reeds. The shape of the reed is more important than the material for the sound, but of course there will likely be a difference in sound.
If you have old accordion reeds you could try to either find a rectangular one or a trapezoidal one that is just too large and can be filed down to size.
A completely different approach would be to look for brass harmonica reeds and adapt one to your need.

 

[kimric]

You can get brass reeds out of those little 7 key toy diatonic accordions.
The instruments are not very good but the reeds are the right alloy of brass and I have used them several times for this sort of thing. I would use an aluminum rivet to set the new reed as this is less likely to warp the plate in my experience.