Hello all,
First, let me wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a happy and prosperous new year. Second, let me beg for advice. I just bought a German made C/F melodeon on the old eBay, and it's in better shape than I might have feared, but worse than I'd like. It also duplicates the keys of my Pokerwork, so the tuning is redundant to my purposes. The key action feels pretty good, the bellows are tight, the ends are sound, as is the keyboard. That's the good stuff. The bad stuff is the straps--no problem there, the valves are leather and pretty far away from the reeds, and the tuning is pretty bad.
What I'd really like to do is change keys. The treble reeds are on four plates--two for each row. What I need to know is:
1. Where can I get either new or used reeds in the keys I want?
2. If reeds generally come two on a plate, do I have to make new reed blocks, or can I modify the blocks I have?
I'd like to convert it to a B/C, or some other chromatic range, to see how I like it. I don't want to re-invent the wheel, since I'm more of a player than anything, so the faster I can get it up and playing, the more I'll like it.
I'll welcome any and all advice you kind squeezers can provide.
PS: I live in the US, so that might be a concern as far as sources go, but not much.
Thanks,
Jamie Robertson