hello, please tell me how to distinguish hand-made reeds from machine-made ones. I have Italian reeds (cagnioni) in my accordion and I don't know if they are hand-made or machine-made, I bought them from a friend and no he also knows if they are reeds by hand or made by machine. I looked carefully at the rivets and they all have the same shape, I think that if they were riveted by hand the rivets would be different, you can't hit the exact same place with the hammer. I ask this because even though they are reeds made by the same manufacturer, not all reeds sound the same, some require more air, some sound louder, others slower.
accordion reeds
- Thread starter geky
- Start date
Photograph and lighting are not good for seeing the differences. However, the side of the base of the left reed appears to be black due to tempering. That would be "hand-made" according to the steel quality (steel tempered in thin stripes). The rivet tops also are what you'd expect from hand-made reeds: they are formed by several individual hammer strikes. The "hammer" these days is part of a stationary machine but the positioning of the reed for individual strikes and corrections to the reed position are done manually. That's all what "a mano" implies: the average reed doesn't take more than half a minute of manual intervention.
So in summary: it does appear like we are talking about hand-made here. There is trickery for simulating those easy tell-tale signs, but you would not expect Cagnoni to engage in it. Assuming that the Cagnoni inscription itself isn't a trickery, of course.
So in summary: it does appear like we are talking about hand-made here. There is trickery for simulating those easy tell-tale signs, but you would not expect Cagnoni to engage in it. Assuming that the Cagnoni inscription itself isn't a trickery, of course.
boxplayer4000
Prolific poster
geeky: If you can publish a good, well lit, sharp focus picture of this edge of the reed(s) then we'll know the answer with more certainty.
