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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Marine Band in the Key of E
Marine Band in the Key of E
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HarpNinja
173 posts
Feb 18, 2010
6:30 AM
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I would say my reed work would beat out most low end custom harps. However, I have a MB in E that is beating me down. It feels a little leaky to me. It plays fast, but I am losing air.
The comb is sealed and flat sanded. The screws putting it together are fairly snug, although one must be a little stripped at the draw plate (may add a bolt).
The cover is on tightly. I don't see any gaps between plate/comb no matter what angle I check it out at.
Any suggestions? Is adding a bolt at the draw plate going to mess with how it plays (hopefully a better seal with comb making it better).
Thanks!
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Mike Fugazzi
http://www.myspace.com/niterailband
http://www.youtube.com/user/NiteRail
http://www.twitter.com/NiteRail
http://www.facebook.com/mike.fugazzi
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barbequebob
509 posts
Feb 18, 2010
11:01 AM
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There could be a couple of reasons for the seeming air leak happening. Obviously, if a reed plate screw near the offending reed gets stripped, that will be one cause of an air leak. Overtightening can be a major cause of this and that's why just doing it just hand tight is the rule of thumb.
Another thing to check is to see if the reed is properly seated flush flat on the reed plate. In Hohner harps made from 1981-1995, this was a very common problem, and a tip I got from Frank Huang who, before he left Hohner with his brother Cham-Ber Huang to form Huang Harmonicas, was a harp tech at Hohner for many years, and what he told me to do, and this often helped out a lot because of bad riveting jobs, was to get a small nail set, place it directly on the rivet head, and then get a small tack hammer and GENTLY tap down on the rivet until it is flush flat on the plate.
Since you're an OB player, sometimes the gap can be problematic on higher pitched harps because, obviously, they need a lower gap setting and high pitched harps by necessity have a lower gap and you may want to play a bit more with the gap setting and maybe raise it a tad, but use caution.
Most customizers place a reed plate bolt where the draw late nails were so you may want to look into that as well.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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HarpNinja
185 posts
Feb 19, 2010
6:08 AM
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Follow up:
I flat sanded the draw plate and that made a huge difference! I also fixed one of the three screws so it held the plates to comb better. Finally, I switched from one bolt on each side of the cover to two (four total) as I couldn't see any gaps, but the plate just didn't feel secure.
The harp is MUCH better now. It equals my other E harps (only have a Lee Oskar and Golden Melody).
I have an old F MB as well and switched that over to screws last night. I also flat sanded the comb and ended up having to flat sand the draw plate as I again had a couple of rivets sticking up quite a bit that weren't sitting correctly on the comb.
The F is put together like a tank, but I need to clean it before playing it. I didn't open the covers yet either. I think fixing the E and starting the F took about an hour.
I know sealing the comb can take a couple of days, but I really wish I had started working with MB's when they were under $20 a couple of years ago. Well worth the effort and short amount of time. And the extra cost of screws is only a dollar or so a harp.
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Mike Fugazzi
http://www.myspace.com/niterailband
http://www.youtube.com/user/NiteRail
http://www.twitter.com/NiteRail
http://www.facebook.com/mike.fugazzi
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barbequebob
513 posts
Feb 19, 2010
10:36 AM
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When you were using just 2 cover plate screws, where did you place them? The MB's work better with judt 2, but placed at the mouthpiece end, which most customizers place them, and the Manji foes.
Mike, under $20.00!!! Damn, when I started out in the 70's, I could go to Manny's in NYC and buy them, including both NYC as well as NY State sales tax for $3.54 each!!!
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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