Construction Features

Stainless Steel

When polished to a mirror finish, stainless looks just about the same as sterling or nickel silver. During manufacture, it is necessary to be polished professionally, as standard buffing equipment is inadequate for the job of polishing. It is also very hard on the tools needed to drill the holes in the grills. This accounts for the extra cost involved with stainless grills. It does have the advantage that the grills will never tarnish, or discolour, and will retain the appearance of newness indefinitely. Stainless also resists scratching.

Hardwood Reed Pans

All my reed pans are now made of solid hardwood selected to produce the best tone. Laminated reed pans are available at special request for those who live in areas where there are wide differences in humidity.

Angled Reed Pans

This is available on the “Professional” hybrid model. This option tends to produce a purer tone than the standard hybrid reed pan. No other maker offers this feature. This feature can be retrofitted on other hybrid Edgley Models after purchase.

Wood Choices

There are several wood options, including oak, curly maple available for the basic model. Flamed curly maple, and more exotic woods, such as cocobolo, bubinga, rosewood, padauk, chechen, ebony, zebrawood, rosewood etc. are available. There may be subtle differences in tone produced by instruments of different wood bodies, but these are difficult to describe. Generally, the harder the wood, the brighter the tone.

Bellows

Most of the instruments I have produced have had seven-fold bellows, All my bellows are finished with top grade garment goat nappa leather, which has been edge-skived for a smooth finish.

Buttons

The buttons on my concertinas are made from Delrin. Delrin is a very tough plastic, which will never wear out or break. The black colour makes them look like ebony. Each button of an “Edgley Concertina” has two bushings, or dampers: one below the button to eliminate the sound of the button bottoming against the button board, and one dense woven felt bushing around the individual holes of the guide plate to eliminate the annoying clacking sound of the button hitting against the edges of the upper guide plate. Several makers do not use the second bushing which lines the holes of the upper guide plate. I take the extra time to double “bush” each note button. “Edgley Concertinas” have one of the quietest actions of any being produced today.

The Fastening

You may notice that the "Edgley Concertina" has the end bolts at the corners of the instrument rather than at the centres of the "flats". This is for a very definite reason. With most concertinas, the seal between the "action box" and the bellows frame may begin to fail. This is because the pressure of the end bolts at the centre of the flat sections does not support the corners and leaks sometimes occur at the corners. If the end bolts are located at the corners, it produces a much better seal over the years.

Reed Chambers

The edges of every reed chamber of "Edgley hybrid concertinas" are lined with gasket leather. This insures that every reed chamber is 100% air efficient, and the effort required to play the instrument is less. Many other concertina makers do not do that. It takes time to gasket every chamber, but we take the time so that every instrument plays as efficiently as possible.

Fingering Systems

There are two basic Anglo fingering systems, Wheatstone and Jeffries. The only difference is with the notes on the right side, third row. Basically the Jeffries has two C#s, but the Wheatstone system is more symmetrical with the notes on the left side. The Wheatstone (Lachenal) system is by far the more popular, and is the system played by notables such as Chris Droney. I also favour the Wheatstone system for my own playing, but Jeffries fingering is also available.