No. 8: A Smaller Blackbird

My latest concertina is a new, slightly smaller and lighter version of my Blackbird Anglo. It is a 30 button C/G with a low D drone in a 5 3/4″ (146mm) wide frame.

Specification
  • 30 button C/G (Jeffries pattern) + low D drone on left thumb.
  • Six sides, 5 3/4″ wide.
  • Seven fold black goatskin bellows with 1 1/8″ deep cards and fancy custom bellows papers.
  • Amboyna burl laminated end plates with black Ebano borders.
  • Amboyna action boxes with black Ebano decorative stripe.
  • Curved-top Ziricote hand rails.
  • French polished finish.
  • 5.7mm diameter boxwood buttons.
  • Brass thumb levers on both sides (drone on the left, air release on the right).
  • 2mm button travel (giving 4mm pad lift at 2:1 action lever ratio).
  • Traditional concertina reeds in aluminium frames for weight saving.
  • 1/5th comma meantone tuning, with A as the root note.
  • Solid sycamore parallel-chamber reed pans.
  • Experimental modifications to lower the volume of the drone note.
  • Weight: 1138g.

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