Welcome to the Anglo Concertina Resources discussion board. Post whatever you want here, as long as it pertains to concertinas (not only anglos). "For sale" and "Want to buy" posts are welcome, as are pertinent commercial posts (especially if you want to post a list of available instruments, books, music, etc.)

I can modify and delete unwanted posts or mistakes, so feel free to e-mail me your requests and suggestions.

-- Paul Schwartz (pss@bigfoot.com), March 22, 1998

Answers

Have you heard of the duo Sherburn and Bartley? I hear Chris Sherburn is an exceptional player, but I have not found a source for his cds in the U.S. Anybody know how I can obtain the cds without having to buy them from the source they list on their webpage?

-- Ken Fleming (ken1gd@flash.net), March 24, 1998.

Great webpage.

One grumble: I think I understand why you have the intermediate pages on the links to other sites... but they are a _major_ pain in that they defeat the browser's "Back" button. Back brings you to the link page, which tries to push you forward again. Makes returning your your page far more difficult that it should be. If you can find any way to fix that behavior, I'd appreciate it!

-- Joe Kesselman (keshlam@alum.mit.edu), April 22, 1998.

Trivia re that "funky IBM case"

If it's the same one I'm using (black fiberglass, squareish clamshell with a handle and number on top and a pair of mysterious snaps on the side) -- that's a Thermal Conduction Module carrying case. TCMs were major components of IBM's water-cooled mainframe computers, and as you might expect were very expensive items; the TCM case was designed to protect them while being carried to and from a customer site for repair purposes. The snaps, by the way, were intended to hold an envelope that contained a description of which TCM was being carried, why, and what its status was.

It _may_ still be possible to get them from surplus dealers in the Eastern NY area. The Hudson Valley Materials Exchange, for example, purchased a large batch of 'em; I've bought three from them so far at Clearwater's yearly folk festival. The earlier ones were in better condition, but even the most recent is still tough enough that I'd have no hesitatation about sitting on it with my instrument inside.

As far as padding goes: Rather than using the original foam, I scavenged high-density open-cell foam used in packing other computer equipment (PCs this time) and cut that to fit. I put four pieces around the outside of each half of the clamshell plus a piece along the top or bottom. In the bottom shell, I put two thinner strips in front and back just so the concertina nests in nicely -- I don't think they actually make much difference but they make me feel better.

The result: Good tough fiberglass with twist-latches and a gasket, surrounding an inch-thick wall of foam, surrounding my 'tina. Total expenditure of $16 -- $15 for the case, $0 for the foam (scavenged), and about $1 of contact cement for assembling the foam into the two liners (not really needed; it actually stayed in place pretty well with nothing but friction holding it).

I don't know if these cases are still available. They may be a bit bulky, especially for smaller instruments (they take up about a 1' cube). They're certainly not as pretty as the fancy woodwork versions. But if I can find more, I'm going to buy them first and worry about what to do with them later; they're too nice to pass up.

-- Joe Kesselman (keshlam@alum.mit.edu), April 22, 1998.

re: Case

Thanks very much for the info! I've often wondered what the case was originally for. I guessed that it was probably for some big expensive mainframe part, but that was it.

The snaps REALLY had me stumped though!

I got mine for $12 from The Button Box when I bought my concertina from them.

I just hacked away at the foam with a serrated bread knife to get it to fit the concertina better, but it's still not great, so maybe I'll try your technique. It's an ugly beast, but yes, it really is an amazing case (for the money!)

Thanks again,

Paul

-- Paul Schwartz (pss@bigfoot.com), April 22, 1998.

re: Back Button, redirect pages, and more

Thanks for the feedback.

I know it can be a pain, but hitting the back button twice should work (does for me with both Explorer and Netscape). Does this work for you?

Well, I did the redirect pages for two reasons:

1. It's easier for me to just link to the redirect page than to remember or keep an updated list of all my links, and if a page address changes, I just have to change it once on the redirect page.

2. By using a redirect page, I can track click-throughs by log-file analysis. This is more to satisfy my curiosity than the usual desire to charge money (no, nobody pays me anything to appear on my pages). In case you're wondering, yes, they do generate a number of click-throughs. Once I have more data, I'll post some stats. If you really want to advertise something specific, let me know. If you just want to announce the availability of a product or service or something (or even an anglo for sale), I'll add the info for free if I think it will help the anglo concertina community.

-- Paul Schwartz (pss@bigfoot.com), April 22, 1998.

Concertina Contact Germany c/o Mario Kliemann e-mail: M.Kliemann@online.de German Concertina Weekend Every Year at the 2nd Weekend in May in Bielefeld. Workshops for Irish Concertina (Anglo), English & German Konzertina.

-- Mario Kliemann (M.Kliemann@online.de), May 23, 1998.