It’s the 15th October, and I have here with me Edward Jay, who has just designed and built a new type of concertina, which he recently presented at one of the three residential weekends of the West Country Concertina Players in Somerset, UK. So, Edward, how was it received?

Mostly it was very well received, though I do admit it seemed to provoke some strong feelings in either direction.

The concertina is one of England’s oldest instruments, so it’s not surprising you were met with a bit of a mixed reception in creating innovation in something that is so traditional. Edward, can you tell us what’s different about your concertina?

Sure. My concertina is almost entirely fabricated on a 3D printer - meaning that it's made of mostly plastic. In the prototype, only the reeds and bellows are made in the traditional way, though I am quite close to fabricating these on a 3D printer too.

3D printing is quite new, isn’t it?

Well, 3D printing has been around for a while actually, but only recently has it become more accessible and affordable. For example, the printers I am using now are called Prusa and cost around £800 each as a self-assemble kit.

But 3D printers aren't exactly quick; to give you some idea of the speed, each part on my instrument can take between 1 and 6 hours each to print. So having a farm of printers beavering away can speed things up significantly.

That said, it takes just two days for three printers to print all the parts for a single instrument, which I think still has a significant edge on the time required to fabricate all the parts using traditional methods. (Actually I understand it takes something close to three months to make a 'new' traditional concertina - which is actually as long as my entire prototype development period.)

Anyway, as it stands, I have three printers; one per colour.

And the three colours you’ve printed in are black, grey and red.

Yes, my little girl picked out lipstick red as the colour you can see inside the black grill.

Good choice, it’s very striking! So you can see the red, but also shiny metallic grey – I assume that’s plastic, not metal – through the cut-away, which itself is rather beautiful! Is that your own design? Do you think this could become a tradition of its own – a signature design?

Thanks – it is all my own design, and it is not fret-sawed obviously (it’s 3D printed). But I had to draw it myself, with pencil and paper, which took about three hours (while sitting in Caffe Nero) and which I then scanned back into my computer.

And your concertina also has hundreds of other innovations inside. Because you’ve had to design, and print, and assemble, every single working part.

Right. I couldn’t rely on the nineteenth-century technology of using rivets, for example. Rivets are nails which you compress at one end. But the problem with this is that if you compress it too much it grips so that the levers can’t move. And if you don’t compress enough, then they rattle.

But to get a traditional rivet that is neither too loose or too tight is a dark art. So I’ve invented a method that does not require a rivet at all - where the plastic lever is held in place simply using the spring.

This seems a very complex instrument. Traditionally, and yours also.

True… mine contains roughly two hundred parts, which all require carefully assembly by hand. The difficulty with concertinas is that everything is so small. But every part has to be strong, reliable, and made to accurate tolerances, otherwise there will be air leaks, which is really bad news.

And you’ve created this entire instrument. Every single part, from design to print, and some more than once; you’ve been inventing on the go all the way through.

Yes. It's taken three months since my original design in Caffe Nero where I posted my original sketch on Facebook, which I claimed would one day become a concertina. Every component is original, created from scratch. I have faced every problem head-on using this new medium of 3D printed plastic.

And it’s fascinating; a bit like squeezing toothpaste from a tube, but on a microscopic scale. Take one of the levers, for instance: you can see these lovely algorithms where it’s filled in blank space with these beautiful swirls and spirals and ripples, like the insides of butterfly wings.

And it has a grain, just like wood, which can be used to your advantage. This lever for example is as strong as the equivalent shape in metal due simply to the grain.

Yes, it’s like a filigree!

Exactly; the 3D printer make these filigree swirls, sort of natural algorithms that they use to fill the spaces – which is normally, in traditional plastics, flat and quite boring. 3D printed plastic is far from boring. A lot of the printer’s materials these days, they’ve got shine on them. They’ve got glitter in them – for instance, the one I’ve made has got metal glitter in the black plastic, so when it’s under stage light, it will sparkle.

And you don’t normally expect that. When people talk about plastic, we tend to be referring to something cheaply functional, or fragile, or flimsy. But this isn’t flimsy at all, is it? It’s not a toy.

No, this is not a toy at all. Every part of it is engineered properly; the stresses and strains, the tension forces...and so on, everything has been accounted for. So it won’t break. This concertina is very solid.

And you’ve tested it...you’ve played it. You’ve had others play on it. You’re not a concertina player yourself but you are a professional musician. You play the accordion, amongst other instruments.

Yes, I’ve played accordion professionally for a long time. I started playing when I was eight years old, and I’m now forty-two, so that’s thirty-four years. Accordions are very similar to concertinas in that they have buttons, reeds and bellows. And I have more than a mild familiarity with what good accordions, good buttons and good bellows feel like - and I think that I’ve been able to apply what I know to this 'miniature' accordion. Also, my dad is a concertina player, so he’s been more than happy to help and advise.

And has your dad played your concertina?

He has! He owns a Morse, which he paid about £2,600 for about 10 years ago. And he after he played my concertina, he said “Eddy, gosh ...yours sounds better. It actually sounds like a concertina!” (Laughs)

Interestingly, I’ve somehow managed to create a concertina sound, I believe due to my material choice because 3D plastic is hollow! If you didn't know, many early concertina insides were made of balsa wood, or similar woods that were chosen rather for their lightness rather than integrity...which I believe in part gave traditional concertinas their signature sound.

So the 3D printed version I did used what is called 15% infill, which means it’s mostly space inside everything I’ve printed (like honeycomb). So it’s very light, very strong, and it sounds remarkably like the traditional concertinas.

Also, if a part does need repairs or if a part needs replacing, for whatever reason, it is effortless to print off another one that’s identical. (Or if you had your own 3D printer I could just email you the file!)

And it’s easy to repair, to replace parts. It attractive, it’s light…

It’s no heavier than any other concertina; in fact one of the comments at the concertina weekend I’ve just been to was that it did feel lighter than a lot of them.

So with this technology, you’ve been able to create a beautiful musical instrument which sounds amazing...out of plastic. Although many people have an association with plastic being a cheap or lower quality option, that’s really not at all the case with 3D printed material, is it?

I think plastic is changing in people’s perceptions, certainly with the concerns about the environment at the moment, where we’re trying to minimise plastic use. So I think plastic is gaining a different sort of value. It’s becoming 'rarer' in effect.

And every material has gone through this. If you remember, twenty years ago we were cutting down on usage of wood and paper, we started using recycled paper more often so that now it’s quite commonplace to use it. And now you can even buy recycled plastic for 3D printers!

And that’s a game-changer really, isn’t it?

Yes, so now we can make functioning, quality musical instruments from recycled materials! Incidentally, the material I’m currently using is a bioplastic – made from renewable resources – called PLA. It’s strong, it’s consistent, and it comes in a range of beautiful colours.

Let’s talk about the online images. You’ve put everything on Facebook, haven’t you? From that first pencil drawing you made in Caffe Nero three months ago, you’ve been updating your progress online, and it’s drawn quite a crowd!

It has! I made a point of posting every few days the latest developments, whether it was a gasket, or a lever, or whatever the innovation was. I even had to 3D print my own collet for a very small drill bit which got a huge number of likes because it was just so bizarre. Actually over the course of the last three months, I’ve created quite a following.

So what’s next?

I haven’t quite decided yet. I think I’m going to get this one – the English concertina – right first. There are still some issues with the holding fixtures to be resolved. And I'm currently adjusting the spring tensions to get the button feel a little better. But I've every intention of seeing this through. The finishing line is in sight!

Interview by Kait Gray - 15 October 2019 - contact: kaitgray@gmail.com