I just clean them, gap them if needed, adjustment them to keep it in tune and switch around cover plates. Special 20s seem to have gone through some kind of changes in shape over the last 15 or so years and so I pull them off of dead harps and put them on new ones cause I like certain shapes better than others
I have not got into modified harps, maybe some day. It may have to do with the fact that I am not obsessed with overblowing, If I make that shift all bets are off and I am sure I will slave all day on the darn things.
Right now I am too busy playing on them to work on them much more than that.
Last Edited by on Mar 04, 2009 6:02 AM
Had to fix a stuck 1hole blow just last night. Which kinda sucks because I was looking for an excuse to buy a new one, but now that one plays as good as ever so I guess I will hang on the cash for a rainy day. I get all crazy and gap, emboss, arc reeds, seal combs, and repaint combs. I have replaced nails with screws and occasionally open the backs of cover plates. It is just as much fun as playing the damn things.
I've done basic gapping for a long time. Just recently, I tried embossing with limited success. I screwed up on the blow plate,but since I save all my blown harps, I had another good blow plate to use. I'd say 90% of the blown ones are draw reeds. It definitely plays better. Still a work in progress.
I do. Gapping, arcing, and embossing. Getting into sealing my MB combs in the next few days. Gonna try it with spray paint lacquer and flat sand it. Learned that tip from Winslow Yerxa.
I try to avoid tuning them though because I'm unsure about how to deal with the copper dust and make sure my family (especially my 2 year old daughter) isn't exposed to anything hazardous.
Well, I don't do anything more than clean my harps and even with that I'm rather uneasy with. I'm not much of a 'handyman' type of guy so I'm always nervous that when I open them up I may not get them closed correctly! Add to this fact that I usually don't know if there's a problem with the harp or my technique...!
So, to Budha's question about tools, I guess if I had a real set of tools I might be more inclined to tinker. I know that my old hohner MB in C is starting to go downhill. However, I don't know what to do to try to keep it alive. I also have a Suzuki Harpmaster that I'm having minor issues with the 2blow (seems a little muted?). I really should find some basic "Harp Maintenance for Dummies" literature/video...any suggestions?
And whatever to drill holes through MB cover plates and combs so I can replace those nails with screws and bolts. I have no clue how to do those things at this point. Which means I have to deal with more dust... goes back to the paranoia part about how I don't want to poison myself and my family.
Happy Harper has a good point. Some wisdom is in my wishlist. A good manual or book would be awesome-to-the max.
I also fiddle a bit Buddah and have built up a small selection of tools that suit me fine. There's a weekly market near me that sells dental instuments that come in handy.
What I would like to see though is a spare parts source. I'd like to be able to buy cover plates, combs, cover plate fixing screws and the like.
One little thing I did make which comes in handy is an LED light which I can put into a chamber and it allows one to see the slot gaps etc better. Holding the plate up to the light is just as good except with this you can keep the plates on the comb.
Oh Yeah! Tips on arcing would be useful. It would be nice to know how much of an arc is beneficial and how much is too much etc.
I would also like to know why reed fatigue occurs virtually anywhere other than at the root of the reed where you'd expect it.
Yes, a reed arching tool would be cool if there even is such a thing. I use a shim under the reed to support the entire length of it, then I use a the round wooden handle of a small craft chisel to flatten the reed the entire length. I then close the gap to the point it won't sound anymore because the tip is actually slightly below the top edge of the reed plate. Then, using the dulled tip of a small screw driver and the end of my thumb, I put the smallest arch in the very end tip of the reed so it pokes back up above the reed plate. I have no way of knowing if this is a correct arch, it just always seems to work for me and my style of playing.
How about a tap tool small enough to tap the reed plates so you can use screws instead of nuts and bolts?
Last Edited by on Mar 04, 2009 7:52 AM
Over the years, I have attempted to "work" on my own harps. Besides religious cleaning (following the regimen of the Esteemed Ricci Cat), I don't try to modify or enhance my harps. My grandfather was a surgeon for almost 50 years. He had hands that could carry out small, fiddly tasks. I learned long ago that my hands, after years of working in ice cold water, banging and scarring them up, I am much better working with hammers and chains than feeler guages and toothpicks.
I am however, planning on taking a side trip this Spring on one of my bike runs from the West Coast to Louisiana, in a pilgrimage to the Buddha his own bad self. I seek enlightenment in the dark arts. I plan to scoop a few so-called "dead" harps out of the harp graveyard drawer in my office and stuff them in my saddle boxes. Then, it's off to the great Sage of the Southwest (pun, inadvertant) for technical harp maintenance lessons.
I do jewelry stuff as a hobby and find jewelry tools are perfect for working on harps. Burnishers for embossing,needle files for tweaking the tuning.
Last Edited by on Mar 04, 2009 8:08 AM
If anybody is interested. I'd sell raw composite combs for $27 shipped in the US. It's just a 1 1/2 x 5 block of wood with the tines cut out. I can do them in whatever color you want and then you can sand it down or shape it however you want.
I do everything (emboss, reed profiles, sanding, combshaping, coverplate retrofitting, etc.). The only tool that I don't have that I wish I did have was a good bench top drill press/milling machine. It would make drilling new screwholes and milling combs WAY easier.
Tookatooka. For all those bits and pieces from screws to new combs, reeds, cover plates etc. for pre MS Hohner harps Google 'Harponline'. For small taps for cutting threads go to model engineering shops, there are several on Ebay.
So far I've only expermented with a little gapping and tuning. I thought I might try reed embossing on one of my dead harps and after visiting some of the how-to sites I realized I was confused on the subject. I now know that reed imbossing actually takes place on the reed SLOT, not the reed itself. Maybe it should be called reed slot embossing.
Tried to put your image up Buddha but it's much too large. If you could resize it down to about 450 pixels width at 72 dpi it would work ok with the following code but replace the { and } with < and >
I do embossing, reed work, & open up backs. With Marine bands seal and shape the combs and swap over to screws. Already had most tools, only things I had to get was a 2mm tap, and a feeler guage, and got what else I needed from $2 shop.
I customized some of my harps over the summer, to some degree of success. But during the school year I have no time. One tool I wish I had was a good nail puller for those annoying marine band nails. And some kinda drill and thread maker that could easily let me give my Marine Bands screws. ---------- "Without music, life would be a mistake" -Nietzsche
I've done it only as needed for a reed alignment or stuck reed. I'm hesitant to do it since I don't have any harps I feel are 'ruinable' yet, during my learning, and I agree that the theory of "learn how to play it before you feel like you need to tweak it" is as valid as "It ain't as playable as it could be if you don't tweak it a bit."
So far I've used a Leatherman tool, spark plug gapper, jeweler's file, and pozi-driv screwdrivers and a penny to toy inside a couple harps with questionable results.
Most of what I would be doing if I knew what I was doing is helping to improve the response of bend notes - anything that makes them easier without choking up the reed or making it too responsive is what I'd kill for. Then again, if I learn how to bend on an out of the box harp there can't be harm in that - just more work. I tend to play MB, sp20, blues harps, and a couple Weltmeister Blackbirds before they seemed to disappear.
Dealing with SP20's aside from one G Delta Frost. Embossing and gapping all I'm doing, presently. As I've mentioned in other threads I'm really impressed with the results of the draw reed work, but I'm doing something wrong on the blow reeds. They mostly now don't respond very well to anything other than a very soft attack. Prob just need to play with gap but haven't had a chance to get back to them since I did them all in one sitting last week.
Improvised toolage with pretty good success. Thinking of borrowing my daughter's electronic guitar tuner to try tuning out of tune reeds.
I am on the verge of at least acquiring the tools I need to disassemble and re-assemble my harps to clean them better. Idealy I'll acquire some manual dexterity efficiency through practice that may enable more than merely cleaning in the future. I would entertain purchasing any tools that would enable this effort. I prefer Suzuki harmonicas and they look to be amenable to disassembly.
Buddha... Well possibly a mini vice but I was thinking more of a frame that the harp/reedplate/comb could be dropped into for drilling.It would have holes in the base to allow for drilling also and if it could be adjusted to fit all sizes of harps and most importantly it would hold the harp rock steady.
I'm not a big tinkerer, but one tool springs to mind. How about a multi-spanner for reeds? For instance if I'm working on a SP20, the reed spanner I need is a different size to one for a Lee Oskar. I'm sure other models/brands are different again. When I worked on a bass-harp, I had to use needle-nose pliers (not as easy). Something akin to one of those bicycle multispanners would be useful.
I've just done some very basic reed work so far (gapping, embossing, arching).
What I'd really love to do is make a comb one day. Maybe testing different woods or other materials even. So far I don't have a clue what tools I would need to do that and what precision is required to get a decent result.
never tweak mine at all, just play them, but having been a trombonist I've never needed too adjust that either. [a wind powered, manually operated, pitch approximator]
I never opened one up, except to change reed plates a few times. Occasionally, I will clean them by soaking in isopropyl alchol or denture cleaner, rinse, and dry. (Plastic comb Bluesmaster) I have no clue about adjusting, gapping, tuning, embossing, whatever.
I spend all my time learning to PLAY the harmonica. (All that harmonica related internet time is part of the learning too.) I really don't want to become a harmonica mechanic.
I have a bunch of new harps that need some kind of adjustment. Maybe someday I'll have the time and knowledge to fix them.
Last Edited by on Mar 07, 2009 7:14 AM
I gap all of them (including the MB deluxe). I only emboss the really bad ones.
Having said that, the last bout of embossing has done absolutely nothing for my MB in Bb (the 3-draw cannot be bent), so I'm going to throw it away and replace it with a deluxe.
Last Edited by on Mar 07, 2009 8:22 AM
