West Australian Musician Creates 3D-Printed Concertinas and Violins Through Innovation and Experimentation
West Australian accordionist Eddy Jay has spent six years designing and 3D-printing concertinas and violins from his shed, selling dozens of instruments to customers around the world. Jay, a professional musician with international performance experience, began the project as a bet with his father and taught himself the engineering through trial and error. The story illustrates a broader shift in instrument-making toward digital fabrication and open knowledge-sharing.
Eddy Jay, a professional accordionist based in Western Australia, began 3D-printing concertinas after a challenge from his father — a concertina teacher in the UK — who doubted the approach would work. Drawing on his deep knowledge of accordion mechanics, Jay redesigned the instrument's internal linkages, springs, and levers entirely from scratch, going through ten rejected prototypes before achieving a sellable result. Over six years he has produced dozens of concertinas, each taking roughly a month to complete, and has shipped them globally. He also built his wife Josephine a custom five-string 3D-printed violin, which she describes as producing a uniquely smooth, reverberant tone quieter than but qualitatively different from a wooden instrument. Jay has found carbon fibre to be the best-sounding material, though he notes it lacks the visual appeal of his earlier colourful plastic designs. He now runs workshops to share his methods, echoing a tradition of open knowledge exchange in lutherie that veteran instrument-maker Scott Wise traces back to publications like the Guild of American Luthiers' quarterly magazine in the 1970s. Looking ahead, Jay plans to combine his computer-aided designs with a CNC machine to return to crafting instruments in wood.
What different sources said
- ABC AustraliaCenter
WA muso's 3D printed instruments draw on decades of creativity
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