US1024771A - Concertina-action. - Google Patents

Description

B. GLASS.

GONGERTINA ACTION.

APPLICATION TILED MAR.17. 1911.

1,024,771 Patented Apr. 30, 1912.

M WM

COLUMBIA PLANOGRAPH c0., WASHINGTON, u. c.

ERNEST GLASS, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

CONCER'IINA-ACTIONI Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed March 17, 1911.

Patented Apr. 30, 1912.

Serial No. 615,080.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Enuns'r GLAss, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicage, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Concertina-Actions, of which the following a specification.

My invention relates to a concertina action, and has for its object to provide anovel form of action capable of being made entirely, or very largely, of metal. It has been heretofore the general practice, so far as I am aware, to construct the keys and most of the other elements going to make up concertina actions, very largely of wood, the necessary flexible joints of the keys being ordinarily made of pieces of leather, or the like, glued to the wooden parts which they connect. This wood and leather construction. is open to serious objections which, I believe, had never been overcome until I devised the mechanism which will be hereinafter described. When a concertina action is made according to the ordinary practice the wooden parts are necessarily fragile and easily broken and the leather joints liable to work loose, tear or be pulled away from the wood to which they are attached. Furthermore the condition of the atmosphere seriously affects both action and tone, dampness, for example, causing the wood parts to swell, with the result that the freedom of movement of the keys is hampered and the resonance of the whole mechanism decreased. Finally, the wood action, whether dry or damp both because of non-resonant character of the material and also because of the necessary size of the parts, mutlles the tones produced by the instrument and makes them impure, this being especially true of the tones produced at points on the key board under the longer keys and more particularly as to the tones produced in the middle of the key board. This results in the additional disadvantage of unevenness in tone, some of the notes coming out much stronger and clearer than others. This unevenness is, for reasons above stated, increased in damp weather. I have overcome all of these disadvantages by providing an action of novel form which can be made very largely of metal, preferably of relatively non-elastic metal which can be easily bent and will retain the bent form, such as aluminum.

The concert-ins action of my invention in addition to being much stronger and more durable than the ordinary actions is not affected by atmospheric conditions, gives clearer, purer tones than can be produced by the instruments of ordinary construction, and, moreover, gives out tones which, in respect to strength, clearness and purity are uniform for all parts of the key board.

The invention is illustrated, in a preferred embodiment, in the accompanying drawing, wherein Figure 1 is a sectional. view taken on a line parallel to the keys; Fig. 2, a plan view of the same; Fig. 3, a detail elevation of a preferred form of button construction for the shorter keys, and Fig. i, a plan view illustrating a modified arrangen'ient made possible by my invention and which is a desirable arrangement under certain circumstances.

Like characters of reference indicate like parts in the several figures of the drawing.

The type of coneertina which I have chosen for the purpose of illustrating my invention has three sets of reeds controlled by three sets or banks of stops or keys of different lengths.

Referring to Figs. 1, 2 and 3 of the drawing, 10 designates the key board, and 11, 12 and 13, the different sets of reeds which are arranged. below the openings 14:, 15 and 16 in the key board. The keys in each case consist of solid metal bars, preferably aluminum castings, provided at one end with finger buttons and having pivoted to their opposite extremities valves designed to cover the openings in the key board. The bars or levers of the longer keys are designated 17, those of the next shorter keys 18, and those of the shortest keys 1.9. The bars 17 and 18 are pivotally mounted on a metal rod or wire 20 supported at each end on a metal angle bracket 21 secured to the key board. The short bars 19 are pivotally mounted on a rod or wire 22 supported by the same angle brackets. The bars 17 and 18 are preferably formed with the hubs which are preferably cast integrally with the bars and serve the double purpose of lengthening the bearing of the bars on red 20 and spacing the bars apart. The short set of bars 1.9 are formed with similar hubs 24 which, however, are made somewhat longer for the reason that the rod 22 carries only this one set of keys while both sets of keys 1? and 18 are mounted on the rod 20. A bridge consisting of a metal cross piece covered by a strip of leather 26 pasted on its upper surface and supported on blocks 27 on the key board intervenes between the keys 1? and 'the lower shorter set of keys 19 and provides a stop for the upper two sets of keys. Under the keys 19 are preferably the leather pads 28.

I Secured to the ends of the bars 17, 18, 19 are finger buttons consisting preferably of cylindrical pieces 29 of wood. or other suit able material, capped with the disks 30 of mother of pearl, ivory, or the like. The buttons for the bars 17 and 18 are preferably rigidly connected to the bars, this being feasible because of the length of the keys, the buttons being bifurcated and set over the ends of the bars and attached theretoby the pins 31. The buttons of the shorter keys 19 are by preference pivoted to the keys and this is preferably done by providing two strips of thin metal, 32, 32, the upper ends of. which are set into a bifurcation in the button and held therein by the cross pin 33, the lower ends being spread and secured to opposite sides of the bar by means of the rivet 34. The buttons extend through openings in an outer casing which serves as a guide for the buttons pivoted on the short bars 19. The strips 32 bind to a certain extent on the bar and the friction developed tends to keep the keys from rattling against casing 35. Furthermore it is very important in replacing the cover 35 after it has been removed for repair or adjustment of the action that the buttons be capable of retaining an upright position. Otherwise it would be very difficult to get the cover back into place. The valves on the ends of bars 17, 1S and 19 may be substantially alike in construction. They are shown as consisting in each case of an aluminum plate 36 on the upper surface of which is cast a pair of lugs 37 between which extends the end of the key or bar, the valve being pivotally secured to the bar by means of the pin or rivet 38. The under side of the valve is preferably covered with a piece 89 of leather or other packing and sound deadening material. The bars 17 and 18 are formed on their upper edges with the longitudinal grooves l0, 411,1'espectively, in which bear the ends of springs 42, 1 .3, springs 42 being secured to a rod or wire tat carried on a bridge 45 mounted on the key board, the springs 13 being anchored to a rod d6 carried on a bridge 47. The short bars 19 are formed on their under edges with similar grooves %S in which bear the ends of the grasshopper springs 49.

With an arrangement above described but with the keys made of wood the tones emitted through the openings 16 and to a less extent those emitted through the openings 15 are muffled and made impure by the presence of the wooden keys above such opening, the interference of the keys with the sounds produced being greater in the case of the interior keys than those at the sides of the key board and being further increased by the swelling of the wood in a damp atmosphere. These defects 1 have overcome entirely by making the bars of the keys of metal instead of wood.

The better results obtained by my all metal action are due not only to the more resonant character of the metal but also to the fact that the necessary parts may be made smaller leaving larger spaces for the sound waves. Furthermore, the mechanism is much stronger than a wood mechanism, is not affected as to the movements of its parts by moisture or other atmospheric conditions. In addition the keys move more truly. There is no looseness and no lost motion. Ordinarily the valves have been secured to the bars by leather joints of some sort. My pivotal joint. while being much stronger and more durable, closes the openings in the key board which it is designed to control more accurately. In the wooden actions very considerable difliculty has been experienced in connection with the joint between the buttons of the shorter keys and the wooden bars to which the buttons are attached. This joint is customarily made of leather which being thin is easily torn and being glued to the wood parts which it connects is likely to work loose or be pulled off with usage or the drying or deterioration of the glue due to lapse of time. The pivotal button shown particularly in Fig. overcomes all of these difliculties.

In Fig. 4 I have shown an arrangement which is desirable under certain conditions and which is made possible by constructing the action in the manner above described. The construct-ion of the ordinary concertina action sets a limit upon the number of tones that the instrument can produce, at least when the keys are in parallel arrangement, due to the fact that the finger buttons must be kept within a reasonably narrow compass, and, with a parallel arrangement of straight keys the buttons cannot be brought within a narrower space than is occupied by the reeds and valves. By making the keys of metal it is possible to give a bent or offset form to the bars and so bring the buttons closer together without changing the construction or position of the reeds and valves so that an instrument can be made having more keys and capable of producing more tones than was possible in the case of the old form of action. Such an arrangement is shown in Fig. 4 in which the bars here designated are offset beyond their pivotal points. If the bars are made of aluminum castings, which is the metal I prefer to use, they may be bent, when the action is assembled, one way or the other, whether the arrangement is that shown in Fig. 4 or that of Fig. 2, so that there may be in every case a nice adjustment of the valve to the openings in the key board which it is designed to cover.

While I have described certain preferred forms, constructions and arrangements, it will be understood that there might be some modification of the same Without departure from my invention. Therefore I do not limit myself to the precise particulars shown and described except so far as the same are made specifically limitations on certain of the claims herein.

I claim:

1. An action for a concertina or other similar musical instrument comprising a plurality of keys each consisting of a key bar made of a single solid piece of metal and provided at one end with a valve and at the other with a button, and a wire on which the key bars are mounted, the bars being perforated for this purpose and having at the perforation spacing hubs integrally formed with the bar.

2. An action for a concertina or other similar musical instrument comprising a plurality of keys each consisting of a key bar made of a single solid piece of metal which is capable of being bent and of retaining its bent shape and provided at one end with a valve and at the other with a button, and a wire on which the key bars are mounted, the bars being perforated for this purpose and having at the perforations lsjpacing hubs integrally formed with the 3. A key bar for a concertina or like action consisting of a single integral aluminum casting formed at opposite sides with laterally projecting spacing hubs, and with a perforation extending through said bar and hubs.

4. A key for a concertina or like action comprising a pivoted key bar provided with a valve, a button and a pair of strips of spring metal secured to the button'and having their opposed extremities spread and pivotally attached flatwise against opposite sides of the key bar so as to take a frictional hold upon the same tending to keep the button in a definite position with respect to the bar.

5. A concertina action comprising in combination a key board, an upper bank of keys each consisting of a key bar formed of a single piece of metal provided at one end with a button and at the other end with a valve and being formed with integral spacing hubs, a second bank of shorter, similarly formed, keys arranged below the first mentioned bank, wires on which said keys are mounted, metal supports on the key board for the wires, and a metal bridge intervening between the upper and lower banks of keys and forming a stop for the former.

ERNEST GLASS. Witnesses P. H. TRUMAN, L. A. FALKENBERG.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C.

Images