Philosofy
491 posts
Nov 16, 2013
12:01 PM
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A couple years ago I decided to make my own brass combs. It was a lot harder than it looked, but I eventually did it. My harps feel like real instruments: a typical harp weights about 64.5 grams, and now mine weigh closer to 170 grams. I had the first combs engraved, but you couldn't really read them. So I had some brass decals made up at the local trophy shop. I made two sets, and here is a picture of my "A" set. The covers are Suzuki Promasters, and the reed plates are all Manjis. I included a low F and high G. Here's a picture:
And a close up:
Then I moved on to the second phase. I'm in the coatings industry, and sell special effect pigments, among other coatings raw materials. With the help of some friends at Sherwin Williams Industrial Coatings Lab, I color coded the covers of my harps. The top covers tell me which key, and the bottom cover of the major keys are a pearlescent white, while the bottoms of the sharps and flats are a sparkling black (like piano keys.) The high G and low F got a pearlescent gray. I use the keys of A and C the most, so those got the really special color shifting pigments. Here's a list of my color code:
B: Blue
F: Orange
C: Topaz to Ruby color shifting
G: Purple
D: Red
A: Ruby to Gold color shifting
E: Green
Here's a picture of them laid out:
And the bottoms, laid out like a piano:
Here are two pictures of the C and A. The harps don't move, just the position of the camera, and you can see how the color changes:
The next step is to slowly send them to Andrew for reed work.
Last Edited by Philosofy on Jun 18, 2014 4:02 PM
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hoody1942
3 posts
Nov 16, 2013
12:29 PM
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Your results look great. Lots of work.
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arzajac
1203 posts
Nov 16, 2013
1:02 PM
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Very nice! I especially like the piano layout!
And your combs are super-flat - they are nice and bright. The two I played were very airtight.
Are you getting the chance to play a lot of harp these days?
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.
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Philosofy
492 posts
Nov 16, 2013
1:44 PM
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I haven't been playing much lately, but that's more due to motivation than anything else. Hopefully now, with this project finished, I'll be able to stick those done things in my mouth more often.
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nacoran
7347 posts
Nov 16, 2013
2:17 PM
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Really cool. I especially like the piano key coding for the sharps/flats. I've considered color coding. I was going to use ROYGBIV going up the scale, but there weren't enough colors, and the whole thing fell apart logically if you used black, white, brown etc. Using white and black bottoms would fix that!
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Nate
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Piro39
55 posts
Nov 16, 2013
3:23 PM
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Philsofy, How did you obtain the Promaster coverplates? Did you buy them separately?
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Philosofy
493 posts
Nov 16, 2013
6:54 PM
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nacoran, the other advantage of the white/black bottoms is that you know which side is up when you grab the harp. Piro, the cover plates were $9.00 each directly from Suzuki.
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tjtaylor
30 posts
Nov 17, 2013
3:32 PM
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Beautiful!
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isaacullah
2571 posts
Nov 17, 2013
4:54 PM
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Really great, Phil! I remember the heft of those bad boys, and I imagine that the new color coding system makes life much easier! Beautiful!
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florida-trader
395 posts
Nov 17, 2013
6:40 PM
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Beautiful work. Congratulations. I recently started building Suzukis with Manji reed plates and ProMaster covers. I've been calling them Pro-Manjis. I think it is a great combination.
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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
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