bronze reeds

[donn]

Browsing around among old French style accordions, Ive noticed that a few supposedly have bronze reeds. Here for example is the insides of an old Bellini CBA - actually made in France.

http://olx-t.imgrap.com/ui/39/14/54/481241054_3x.jpg>

Im not able to make out clearly what Im seeing here, Im not sure in this case a picture is worth a thousand words, but hopefully its better than nothing. Note that the reed plates are nailed on (I think I see that much anyway.)

Anyway, the story I get from a casual web search is that - in the accordion - bronze reeds were occasionally used 100 years ago, but seem to be inferior in most ways to steel. But they may be used more recently in melodeons, and in harmonicas and similar where I suppose the rust resistance is particularly desirable. These CBAs are old but not quite that old I think, maybe pre war but maybe not. Anyway, wondering what people think about sound and other playing characteristics. I find one example on youtube that doesnt sell them very well.

 

[JIM D.]

Yes it is common to find high octave piccolo reed plates made of brass in higher quality accordions made some 60+ years ago. At the time almost everyone had switched to aluminum for most all reed plates in their accordion construction with the exception of some of the last octave of piccolo reeds that had very small tongues. The aluminum at the time was a soft metal and would dampen the sound of these small reed tongues. A harder metal was needed to transmit to sound vibration to the reed block and brass or bronze was used. Today titanium is used in place of brass and works as well with less weight. The nailed on reeds with a leather gasket had the advantage of being able to remove and replace a reed for cleaning, tuning, and valve replacement without waxing. The disadvantages of this design was that the leather although sealing well, damped the reed vibration to the reed block. A waxed in reed plate will transmit reed vibration more effectively and has become the norm in accordion construction.
As for MADE IN FRANCE this one you picture here just might be an old Hohner made CBA with the Bellini name applied.

 

[donn]

Today titanium is used in place of brass and works as well with less weight.

Thats interesting, but I guess, only in the more expensive models? I dont think Ive ever noticed this detail mentioned in advertising copy online.

The nailed on reeds with a leather gasket had the advantage of being able to remove and replace a reed for cleaning, tuning, and valve replacement without waxing. The disadvantages of this design was that the leather although sealing well, damped the reed vibration to the reed block. A waxed in reed plate will transmit reed vibration more effectively and has become the norm in accordion construction.

Im glad to hear that its regarded as an easier repair situation, Ive wondered how techs feel about pulling and replacing those nails. I like it because I dont have any reason to worry that my accordion might melt. Im no acoustician, but I think even if the reed plates were transmitting vibration to the block with 100% efficiency, those vibrations would eventually be lost in there anyway? In practice, the accordion seems plenty loud. I dont recall ever getting to see the inside of a newer Piermaria or something, made for that French/Portuguese market, but Id hope they still use nails - Cooperfisa shows it as an option, and nails seem to still be widely used in diatonic boxes.

As for MADE IN FRANCE this one you picture here just might be an old Hohner made CBA with the Bellini name applied.

Interesting - Ive sure if Hohner ever made a French style accordion (C griff, register switches behind the keyboard, nailed reeds, 3/3 stradella bass), they would indeed have put some other name on it. Are they really known to have made that kind of accordion, were there any names theyre known to have used?

 

[JIM D.]

In over 100 years of Accordion and Harmonica manufacture Hohner has, at times, when necessary produced accordions of different designs when profitable, for importers that wished a product that they could market. In this case although German made, the product would have a stamp ( MADE IN FRANCE -- MADE IN USA -- MADE IN ??? ) Hohner has also done the reverse as in their quality line of Marino accordions, they are MADE IN ITALY but stamp'ed MADE IN GERMANY. They now have their student models both PA and button MADE IN CHINA and their quality Diatonic's MADE IN ITALY.

 

[Geoff de Limousin]

Noticed this interesting topic whilst browsing through this , new to me, forum. Interesting points about Bronze and Brass reed frames;

I have a 100 year old (or thereabouts) small CBA by Masspacher in which all the reed frames are Bronze.

My newer CBA , a 1931 Cooperativa Armoniche (Vercelli) has all its flute voice reeds mounted on Bronze frames ( 3 voice Musette) though the Basson and Bass side reeds are on Aluminium frames, which is a help as the five voice Bass is heavy enough when the bellows get extended a wee bit.

And my newest CBA a Cavagnolo 96 made in 2000 has the very highest half octave of musette voices on Brass frames.

All three instruments have nailed (or screwed ) down reed frames.

I had two recent Maugein's which also had nailed on reeds.

So, in France and Italy there appears to be a tendancy towards non waxed in reeds.

 

[donn]

Well, Italian accordions made for the French & Portuguese market are often nailed, but otherwise Id guess the Italian makes come out waxed more often.

It seems like weve had a more illuminating discussion on this topic somewhere, and my illustration is gone, but ...

http://gumshoearcana.blogspot.com/2011/03/quick-illustration.html[/url]
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xqV2jP2T3gg/TXJoWeHhVGI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/dpN6_bgCgOk/s320/diagram.jpg>

From a 1910 Hohner diatonic. The attached text says The above illustration features a set of brass bass reeds on individual zinc plates pinned to a leather gasket without using wax. Hohner advertised them as bronze or steel bronze reeds.

So it may be that in some cases bronze reeds means only that the plate is bronze, but I wouldnt expect that comes up very often since that detail is normally omitted from accordion descriptions. Zinc? Bronze? Aluminum? Titanium? Gosh I dont know. But in this case it refers to the reed itself.

But when you hear that something is made of bronze, your next question should be what is it made of? because a lot of significantly different alloys bear that name. The idea is that its a mix of copper and tin, but it could be copper and aluminum instead, or even copper and zinc (commercial bronze), it could have a variety of things such as phosphorus added. The text mentioned above asserts that these brass or bronze reeds, whatever they really are, wear out because of work hardening, a metallurgical phenomenon that some metals are more prone to - but on the bright side, I believe bronze is far less susceptible to corrosion than steel. Phosphor bronze is used for springs, for what its worth. If I were looking at accordions and one of them had bronze reeds, I dont think Id be altogether put off by possibly mythical fears.

 

[Ganza]

Hohner DO make french spec accordions, dont they?
The (newish) "Fun Range".

I range (pardon the pun) between finding them too garish and then other times I love them and want to own one!