Splitting Accordion Reeds
I got these vintage accordion reeds cheap from ebay a while back. They’ve been sitting on my shelf for over a year, so at an ambitious valuation they’ve accumulated 1% more vintage.
These reeds are unlike their neighbours, who came from pump organs. The reed tongues are steel (not brass) and the frames are aluminium (not brass). But beyond that there are no material differences. Only morphological ones.
The most consequential difference to organ reeds is they have to work both ways, on the blow and the suck. Not by clever reed physics, but instead out of sheer two-faced duplicity. For each each note there’s a pair of reeds facing opposite directions. This is because unlike organs, squeezeboxes are both squeezed and unsqueezed. Half the clue is in the name.
I have dubious plans to make all kinds of imaginary instruments. I doubt I will ever complete them. But there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever about piano accordions. I’m definitely not going to make a piano accordion, nor do I have any desire to. I’m interested in instruments which have the confidence to pick a direction and stick to it.
No offence to accordion players. I have four myself, which is exactly why I don’t need another one. The same logic doesn’t apply to pump organs though.
These reeds are from a piano accordion, so each pair of reeds plays the same note. I know what you’re thinking. Buy one set, get another free.
So I had a choice. Do I make something bigger and heavier that only uses half of reed frame, or do I try to split them in half and use them in two projects?
I’d have to be careful. There’s very little material between the two reeds. Measure twice cut once. Cutting these would take a steady hand and a thin blade.
As appealing as it might sound to some, taking a hacksaw to accordion reeds didn’t fill me with joy. Same with a piercing saw. I didn’t trust myself to do it free-hand.
Table saw? With a 3mm kerf I’d completely obliterate the material I was trying to cut. But it does have a fence, which would at least mean it was a nice straight cut. But there are million other ways it would be manifestly unsuitable, five of which I can count on one hand.
What I need is a fine saw, with a fence.
I saw these slitting saws on Amazon. They look a bit dodgy but it’s worth a go. They claim to be Dremel branded, but I very much doubt it. I don’t mind though, because I neither have a Dremel, nor a generic handheld rotary tool.
I don’t want a generic handheld rotary tool either. If I can’t do it slowly with a piercing saw, I certainly can’t do it at high speed with a high energy spinning blade of unknown provenance and composition.
What I do have is a pillar drill. But I’m not just going to put it in the pillar drill and hold the reed frame in my hand. I have five more reasons for that, and I’ still quite attached to them.
X
What any reasonable person would have done at this point is buy a cross vice. I don’t think I’m unreasonable, but there’s a lot of clear space between the two extremes.
But I might have gone and bought a cross-vice, but I happened to have this tiny linear rail and tiny vice. This bracket seemed to be sturdy and square enough. I chopped it down, tapped some threads in the tiny vice and before too long had a working saw guide.
These reeds are from the bass. A Stradella bass is arranged in the cycle of 5ths, which is how these are also arranged. One set is the tonics, the other are for playing the chords.
Even after some trial cuts on offcuts of oak, it still felt risky. So I started with E flat as it was the most distant from where I normally hang out.
[Cycle of 5ths image with reeds]
No disrespect to my saxophonist friends. It’s a perfectly fine key.
I would feel bad about destroying this block. But the rest of the accordion is long gone. And, as I said, I have no desire to build a piano accordion. The least I can do is make something unrecognisably different. I don’t know what that is yet, but I’ll know it when I hear it.
4:43
[Cycle of 5ths enharmonic]