scstrickland
26 posts
Mar 19, 2009
4:18 PM
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I went for a 4 draw and got that frustrating sound of silence. I tried taping on my palm, I tried banging on my thy, I tried blowing out the crud, lint or grunge that had brought my jam to a halt. No luck. Time to take the cover off. Crap.... O.K. so the cover is off and the reed seems so catch on the edge of the reed slot. What's up with that? how did that happen? I try to remember all the things on youtube about fixing a reed. Can you straighten a crooked reed? I don't know, Ill try. So I use my dentist tool thing. No luck, it won't budge. Damn! I try to push down gently on the reed and it gets stuck in the slot. Crap!...Oh yah! I remember, PLINK it, plinking is good. So I try....PLUNK? something is wrong. the reed is bent at a freakish angle. AAAAAAHHH. It seems to be torn a about half way through apox. 1/8 inch from the rivet. I killed my first harp. How did my reed get so badly out of line? did it tear from playing, causing the misalignment or did I jack it up trying to fix it. This sucks, the reeds were only 2 months old.
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oldwailer
597 posts
Mar 19, 2009
4:23 PM
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Yeah, the 4-draw is the one that always goes on me too. I think the reed tears from playing--then it gets out of line. What kind of harp? You might be able to just replace the reed or the plates. . .
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Tryharp
144 posts
Mar 19, 2009
4:30 PM
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Strickland,
I have killed the 2 draw on mine, same sort of thing. As this is the first one of yours to die, you maybe learnt to bend on this one. I think when you are learning to bend, you put a hell of a lot of force onto the reed, and can fatigue the reed and reduce the lifespan significantly. Once you learn and you can bend easily, I think they will last a lot longer.
Tryharp
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scstrickland
27 posts
Mar 19, 2009
5:01 PM
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It's was a Hohner Bluesharp. Not the one I learned to bend on though. I had gotten new MS reeds at Christmas, and put those in. I think I will order new reeds but will try my hand at embossing what's left of the old ones. Fortunately it was my C harp and I have others. I feel that I have passed a milestone or something. I killed my first harp. I'm a Man now.
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oldwailer
598 posts
Mar 19, 2009
6:54 PM
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Yeah--the next stage is sucking a roach out of a harp on a long wailing draw!
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Miles Dewar
249 posts
Mar 19, 2009
10:52 PM
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Sometimes it gets shifted to the left or right slightly. Try bending the reed down in the slot, then shifting it left or right until it is comfortable.
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---Go Bears!!! (Richard Dent for Hall of Fame)---
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Andrew
175 posts
Mar 20, 2009
1:27 AM
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I get rotated reeds (ie shifted to the left or right - rotated around the rivet), but only when I've been embossing them.
I slip a thin sheet of paper underneath and use a penknife to push the long edge of the reed back in the right direction. It's useful and informative to have a good magnifying glass.
Last Edited by on Mar 20, 2009 1:31 AM
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Honkin On Bobo
30 posts
Mar 20, 2009
5:08 AM
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strickland:
"I feel that I have passed a milestone or something. I killed my first harp. I'm a Man now."
That's hilarious, and exactly the way I felt when it first happened to me (exactly as you described). Like a rite of passage. I'm thinking, well guitarists break strings right? I must be putting in significant beneficial practice time right?
So I go on a forum (maybe this one, not sure)and post about my experience. At which point, the collective posters tell me it happened because I'm not bending correctly, and that when I learn to do that, it won't happen anymore. Which was particularly tough to hear because I had just started to bend some holes. So.... I can finally bend, I just can't bend properly, freakin' great.
In about a day I went from, "whoo-hoo! passed a rite of passage", to "this sucks, I suck, and oh by the way, you'll be paying a lot more for your "instrument" as you now have to replace harps a lot sooner than you thought you would".
Haven't tried the "take it apart and fix it" route yet, as I am not the tinkering type. Never liked having to "work" on my car. I just want to drive it.
So there they sit. Seven S 20s. Three Cs, Two Ds, an A and a G (hey, that almost sounds like my college transcript). Each with a reed that won't play, not a peep.
I got the blues about problems I'm having in trying to play the blues. Sounds about right. ;-)
Last Edited by on Mar 20, 2009 5:27 AM
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Tryharp
162 posts
Mar 20, 2009
5:15 AM
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Bobo,
Funny stuff!!
but....get your screwdriver out man, half of them have probably just got a crumb stuck under the reed.
Tryharp
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Andrew
180 posts
Mar 20, 2009
5:29 AM
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"half of them have probably just got a crumb stuck under the reed."
he's not joking - I do an awful lot of writing in pencil and erasing and I once got a reed stuck and when I opened the harp there was a piece of pencil rubber stuck under the reed!
Last Edited by on Mar 20, 2009 5:29 AM
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Honkin On Bobo
34 posts
Mar 20, 2009
6:30 AM
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Tryharp and Andrew,
Alright boys, I guess I gotta do it. I mean I can't make anything worse right? It's not like I'm gonna hack a digit off or anything.
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