In May 2018, I was contacted by a man in Scotland who had looked at my web site. He expressed great interest in the changes I had made to the English concertina. He had played English and was having thoughts and ideas along the same lines as I: how can we improve playability?
In June, after several more e-mails, he commissioned Alex Holden, a concertina maker from Lancashire, to build a set of “replacement end boxes” for his 1914 Wheatstone concertina - after my guidelines.
“Replacement” means exactly that: you take the original ends off, store them safely - screwed on to a thick, wooden board. Put on the new ends, and voila! - a new instrument!
So I produced a set of drawings with the “vital characteristics” for the end boxes, and a set of hand straps, laser cut and engraved by Joel, my harmonica making friend. Choice of wood, fretwork design, and colours was left to Alex.
Here is the result:
Photo by courtesy of Alex Holden
The best way to highlight the differences in the replacement ends, is to look at new and old:
Photo by courtesy of Alex Holden
The only characteristic you can not see here is that the buttons go all the way down...
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