Machine made or Hand made reeds - How can I tell ??

[JIM D.]

On this Forum in the past valuable information has been posted on this subject. But this information always shows up as a response in a reply to a thread
with a different subject title. Lately I'm getting more & more ??'s from customers who ask "How can you tell the difference ?".
Let's start with Machine made --
In the years before the 40's USA, German, & Italian accordion makers used reeds in their models with reeds made in house. The quality of these house
made reed varied with the accordion models and price of the model selected. In the late 40's & 50's "The Golden Age of Accordions" to the present
makers installed machines to produce machine made reeds. You will find the Italian machine reeds in older & newer models will provide adequate
playability for the average accordionist. German machine made reeds although of lesser quality will be quite adequate for the average accordionist.
Now the Chinese offer models with Italian & German made machine reeds but use grade B (seconds) in their models. An accordion with Chinese
machine made reeds - the quality is simply "An Accident Waiting to Happen" with hard usage.
I must admit that some of today"s machine made reeds ( made with the new CNC machines) are rapidly becoming a rival to the materials &
sound quality of a Hand made reeds.

As for today's Hand made --
A quality reed of higher tech components, close tolerances, & assembled by hand. Preferred by discriminating accordionist's for their performance
& sound quality.

Now how to tell the difference between the two on sight --
On inspection the appearance of the two are very similar. They will in most cases have blue bases. The machine made reed will have a blue base with
silver edges - the hand made will have a blue base with blue edges, The machine made reed tongue is stamped from a coil up to 7 to 8 reeds wide,
The hand made reed will have been stamped from a coil one reed wide,
The machine made reed will have a aluminum or brass reed plate that is easily scratched. The newer hand made reed plates are made with duraluminum
and nard to scratch.
On a newer hand made reed you will not find tuning scratch's on the reed tongue and why you will see in the video I recommend.
Some of you have seen this video but it seems most have not -- a fine example of a accordion tech assembling a hand made reed.



I'll welcome responses from members that can amplify my comments.

JIM

 

[danp76]

Thank you Jim, always helpful information!

So the now obvious question is how does one know which type or brand of handmade is "best?" I've heard Binci are fantastic, are they better than Artigiana or others? I also heard people say that it depends on the style of music that you play. Are today's handmade reeds as good as the ones from the Golden Age? I would imagine this is another topic where "best" is very subjective to ones playing style, etc?

 

[JIM D.]

Sorry your question is not obvious but very broad. The few hand made reed makers still in production are making reeds of almost
equal quality. The minor differences in reed response & sound quality will differ in the model their installed in. It will depend on
the individual accordionist to hands on try models with different brands of reeds installed which will suit his or her performances.

 

[debra]

I also learned that machine (and tipo a mano) reeds that are stamped out of a sheet (wide coil) of steel are stamped out not in the direction of the coil but perpendicular to it. This has the potential of them being slightly less strong than an a mano reed that is (obviously) always in the direction of the (narrow) coil it is made from. Not sure whether this is true for all reed makers. (I visited only one.)

 

[Glenn]

Or indeed the potential to make them stronger? Metallurgy is a complex science.