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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
reed substitution ahhhhhhh
reed substitution ahhhhhhh
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robbert
130 posts
Sep 15, 2012
6:27 AM
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I'm checking with you specialists and others out there who may have some advice for me on this.
I currently have a variety of brands and models that suffer from reed fatigue from past 'bending' experiments, have fractured, and need replacement.
No problem removing said reeds, now what to replace them with?
Manufacturers seem to have as many different reed profiles as there are models.
Short of ordering the actual reed needed from the manufacturer, or a dealer, or whomever, are there tricks to scavenging and modifying a reed to fit?
For instance, a LO reed is wide enough to fit a Susuki Firebreath slot, but LO reeds are generally...longer. If I shorten the reed to fit, the pitch changes dramatically upward, as you might expect. Almost a little too far to easily re-tune. Does it work to add weight to the reed using glue, or nail polish or JB Weld, etc...?
I have other specifics, but I don't want to bore you. You get the idea, I think. Any advise from folks experienced with this would be greatly appreciated.
Also, where can I order a supply of those tiny screws used for reed replacement(I also salvage rivets), and a supply of wind saver material of various kinds, for chromatics?
Thanks again.
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STME58
238 posts
Sep 15, 2012
8:48 AM
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I use solder on the end of a reed to bring the pitch down. Just need to make sure I get all the flux cleaned off.
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BeardHarmonica
121 posts
Sep 15, 2012
8:57 AM
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I have limited experience doing this but.
I use two broken harmonica of the same make/key to repair one harmonica. I try to use blow reed to repair draw reed for longevity.
I use seydel toolkit:
http://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel1847.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Seydel/Products/900000
It contains everything you need to repair a reed.
They provide clear instruction:
http://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel1847.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Seydel/Categories/Configurator/Config_Welcome/Workshop/Reparatur/
Last Edited by on Sep 15, 2012 9:16 AM
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BeardHarmonica
122 posts
Sep 15, 2012
8:59 AM
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for parts:
http://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel1847.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Seydel/Categories/Products/Equipment/Spare
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GMaj7
87 posts
Sep 15, 2012
10:09 AM
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Hey Robert,
Email me and I will see if I can help you out.
I have the screws and some other stuff.
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Greg Jones
16:23 Custom Harmonicas
greg@1623customharmonicas.com
1623customharmonicas.com
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
1290 posts
Sep 15, 2012
10:46 AM
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Seydel and Hohner reeds are interchangeable up to usually the 5 hole. If I had to put a four-hole reed in a Hohner, I didn't even try to find a Hohner reed for it. I just put in a Seydel reed.
Hohner reeds will fit B-radicals.
A lot of Hering reeds will fit Hohners. Diatonics probably yes. On chromatics, sometimes. A great deal of the time Hering reeds don't fit Herings of the same model. they changed reedslot configurations in the chromatics several times.
Like STME58 mentioned, you can use solder. If you have a regular F 1847 - all keys are long slot - you can use reeds from that F to replace any reed in any 1847 model, any Solist Pro, Session of Favorite below D, any Session Steel.
On repairs for customers, I would often put a steel reed in their brass reed harp. You'd never realize it unless you saw it, it works fine. It slowed down the breakages considerably. There's quite a few guys running around with Solist Pros that I put 4 draw, 4 blow and 5 draw steel reeds in.
There's even some people running around with 4 blow and 4 draw steel reeds in Hohners.
I'm sure a lot of them don't know it. Just all of the sudden, they stopped blowing that reed out every month, lol.
I keep my reeds in bottles, grouped by note. A has it's own bottle, Ab, has its, etc. I just dump them out, measure the slot with vernier calipers, then use the calipers to figure out what length reed I need. The width is always obvious, I can eyeball that. Then I put it in. I'm not worrying about what harp to get it from, I just empty the bottle.
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David
____________________
At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong.
R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne
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HarveyHarp
366 posts
Sep 15, 2012
1:01 PM
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@David. I have been been reading your posts here and elsewhere for a few years now, and I normally agree with you, and have adopted numerous of your methods, but I have to disagree with your method of cataloging spare reeds. That was the first method I used, and it was a pain in the butt, and way too time consuming. Now I leave the reeds on the plates and sort the plates by keys. Then I use the information in Pat Missin's Altered States, and a key chart, to select the reed that I want. For example, on Hohner Handmades, a 4 Blow on a A is the same as a 4 draw on a G, and a 2 draw on a D, and 2 Blow on a F. Its easy.
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HarveyHarp
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robbert
131 posts
Sep 15, 2012
2:32 PM
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Thanks guys...
My aim is to be able to repair and modify my own harps to some degree.
I don't really have a vast bone yard of spares to work from...so I guess I need to somehow build my collection...
I'm not really blowing my harps out these days, but I have some I would really like to fix...a few ancient Hohner chromatics, the Suzuki Firebreath, a Seydel LLF, and a Powerbender...
I appreciate all the suggestions...thanks, and keep 'em comin'!
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STME58
240 posts
Sep 15, 2012
3:00 PM
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I alternate between buying new reed plates and replacing reeds. I keep the old reed plates as a source of spare reeds.
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
1291 posts
Sep 16, 2012
5:24 PM
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Harvey, I don't know what there is to disagree about, I just said that's what i did. To actually disagree, you have to say "David does not do that." I never said it was the only way. I just said I did it.
Here's the thing
It's a helluva lot easier for me, but I don't have to look at any charts or anything - I can look at a reed and tell what is. There is a big difference between a C3, C4, C5, etc.
I dump them out in a pile and they are all the same note. It takes me maybe two minutes to find the one I need.
When they are on reedplates, the reeds are exposed and sometimes get caught on one another. I've done all kinds of stuff, including individually wrapping them to protect them. Eventually, I said to hell with it and just popped them off into little bottles sorted by note. It's worked out a lot better.
But to each his own. None of us are the same.
Robbert, I think you might be jumping the gun a little bit. The ones you have now, that is the start of your boneyard. See what you got with the parts you have. Maybe you fix two or three of them with what you have.
Something to keep in mind, the draw reeds will also fit on the blow plate. Thus, a four draw from a C will work in a 4 blow on a Bb without tuning. That's given that both are the same slot size, of course. So you can do that for harps Db and down or D and up. 1847s, btw, are all long slot.
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David
____________________
At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong.
R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne
Last Edited by on Sep 16, 2012 5:27 PM
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nacoran
6092 posts
Sep 16, 2012
6:43 PM
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I don't have the direct link, but I know Jim over at Jim's True Chromatic was working on a list of reed sizes (he was asking for people with unusual harps to take measurements of the reeds- I still need to get some calipers.) The idea was he was making a master list for this sort of stuff. You could email him or ask him on his Harp Repair site on Facebook-
https://www.facebook.com/groups/201671879953851/
As for adding weight, one thing you didn't mention was Blue Tack (that sticky gum stuff for putting up posters on the wall). Several guys on the forum use it for temporary to long term retuning and it gives you a lot more margin of error since you can keep adjusting it until you have it just right.
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Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
1292 posts
Sep 17, 2012
3:36 AM
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Pat Missin already made the master list of slot sizes. It's a free download on his site.
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David
____________________
At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong.
R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne
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robbert
132 posts
Sep 17, 2012
6:57 AM
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Thanks, everyone for your suggestions and comments.
Fixed the Suzuki Firebreath, now on to the Powerbender and the Seydel LLF!
At this point, for both of those, it looks as though I need to add weight, especially to the LLF, as it is a lower octave harp. Its the 10 blow.
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laurent2015
421 posts
Sep 17, 2012
8:23 AM
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If you somehow have a masochist's soul, have a peek here:
http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/board/board_topic/5560960/4294641.htm
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