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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! > Zen and the Art of Harmonica Maintenance
Zen and the Art of Harmonica Maintenance
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AppalachiaBlues
22 posts
Jun 15, 2017
6:04 AM
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, John Sutherland, the ´Romantic' chooses not to learn how to maintain his motorcycle. He simply hopes for the best, and when problems do occur he often becomes frustrated and is forced to rely on professional mechanics to repair it. In contrast, Phaedrus, a "Classical", has an older motorcycle which he is usually able to diagnose and repair himself through the use of rational problem solving skills. He obsesses with trying to find the true meaning of "quality". He is more connected to the detailed workings of the machine upon which he rides.

When it comes to harmonicas, I am more like John. But now 20+ years into playing, I think I'm starting to become just a little bit like Phaedrus.

Where do you sit on the spectrum?

Do you actually enjoy harmonica maintenance, or is it an unwelcome chore to be done, that eats up valuable playing time?

Last Edited by AppalachiaBlues on Jul 03, 2017 2:21 PM
dougharps
1466 posts
Jun 15, 2017
7:34 AM
Interesting way to frame this issue!

I am somewhere in the middle. I now adjust gaps on any new harp to respond to my attack. I will do adjustment/maintenance after that when issues arise during play. I don't resent doing this, but I don't seek out opportunities to mess with them unless I find performance to not be meeting my needs.

I have noticed generally that if I am playing amplified harp in a loud stage environment I tend to use my Manjis more often, but if it is an acoustic setting with reasonable stage volume where I can use more nuance I usually choose my Deak Harp MBs or my Special 20s more often. I don't know if it is the specific type of harp or just how they respond to my setup.

I have done Hohner reed replacements and occasional pitch adjustments, too. No big deal, but I don't look forward to it or dread it. In the middle...
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Doug S.

Last Edited by dougharps on Jun 15, 2017 7:35 AM
zx679
22 posts
Jun 15, 2017
8:36 AM
I've haven't been at this that long. I do gapping and dental wax on the base of overblow reeds on new harps and periodic gapping as I find issues. I've sanded two combs and reedplates. On some harps I add a bit of dental wax to plug the coverplate/reedplate gaps where my tongue/lips might get snagged.

Overall, I don't like doing the maintenance. It eats into practice and playing time and it's not that enjoyable. However, I don't have the money to pay someone else to do it. Also, doing it myself probably has a lower turnaround time than sending it to someone to work on.

As a parting idea I realize that there are real limitations to the sort of work I can do. For example, I don't do any embossing, reed alignment or reed shaping and I think that it might be holding me back with getting overdraws on most of my harps.

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something something harmonicas...
florida-trader
1149 posts
Jun 15, 2017
10:43 AM
I’m a little surprised by the thinking that maintaining your harp cuts into your playing time. Time is time of course, but isn’t this a lot like the concept of sharpening your saw (or axe)? If you are chopping down trees, doesn’t it make sense to have sharp tools? If you are woodshedding, doesn’t it make sense to have harps that are in good working order?

zx679 said, “I don't do any embossing, reed alignment or reed shaping and I think that it might be holding me back with getting overdraws on most of my harps.”
Here’s the deal with that. You can’t do one without doing the other – embossing without reed alignment, that is. Even though to the naked eye a reed may look centered, often, it is not. Think about a basketball going into a basketball hoop. Most of you have probably seen someone demonstrate that the hoop is actually twice as big as the diameter of the ball. So, a shot doesn’t have to be dead center for it to go in. If you make the hoop just slightly bigger than the ball (like they do at the carnival games) a lot of the shots that would normally go in won’t. They will clank off the rim. Similarly, if the slot tolerances are wide, the reed does not have to be perfectly centered for it to swing through the slot without bumping into the edge. As soon as you emboss the slots you will tighten up the tolerances and reeds that are not centered won’t swing through the slots. So, it is very easy to make your harp play worse rather than better. But if you want to be an effective overblower (and overdrawer) it really helps to narrow the slots and profile your reeds.

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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
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Last Edited by florida-trader on Jun 16, 2017 4:50 AM
knight66
26 posts
Jun 15, 2017
12:09 PM
It might be worth pointing out that Phaedrus, Robert M Pirsig, drove himself insane in pursuit of the meaning of quality. A very good book now dated but with a sad ending as his son, Chris, who took the trip with him was murdered many years later in a botched mugging.Robert himself died on 24-4-2017.
I am a budding Phaedrus as I can't keep my fingers out of anything for long
The Iceman
3175 posts
Jun 15, 2017
1:07 PM
A must read, this book is. Very stimulating!

I read it about the same time as "Be Here Now"
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The Iceman
zx679
23 posts
Jun 15, 2017
1:23 PM
Hi Tom. Your points are well-taken and when I was really trying to get a handle on overblows I realized that doing some work on harps to make the overblows easier was ESSENTIAL to learning more quickly because it allowed me to recognize the embouchure changes that were required with less effort. Now that I've acquired a modicum of ability I'm more reluctant to spend time doing harp work. But as I said before I'm sure I'm holding myself back especially with regards to overdraws.

One of the reasons I don't want to go "too crazy" with harp work is because of (perhaps misinterpreted) advice from players like Adam who advise playing on "tough harps" to help build up your chops. I guess there is a fear of becoming dependant upon semi-custom harps in order to be able to play well....or at least that's been my thinking. (I have a fear of getting a Blue Moon harp and then being compelled to throw all my other harps in the gargbage, heh) Whether or not following that reasoning is actually beneficial in real life probably depends on the player and their habits as much as anything else.
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something something harmonicas...

Last Edited by zx679 on Jun 15, 2017 1:24 PM
jbone
2299 posts
Jun 15, 2017
1:34 PM
I'm John mostly. I give a decent warm water rinse here and there, of my ootb harps. I have had a few customs and still do use one. My adventures into sealing, gapping, etc were fairly disastrous and the payoff to me was not worth the effort. I would never buy a new car I needed to tweak to make it drive ok. I will however change a tire. Or a reed plate as the need arises.

Jolene and I are in week 10 of our Adios Infinity tour of the US. We've played in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, and now we're in Buffalo Wyoming and tonight is our second gig downtown at Century Club. From here northern Cal is on the map.

I have changed a couple of Manji reed plates and blown out an Eastop in A on this trip. I am about to order some fresh Manji plates to keep on hand for when I do flat a reed. Other than that life is plenty full without the extra complication of working on harps. Keeping a truck on the road and a travel trailer all working right is its own job.

But that's just me!
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nacoran
9489 posts
Jun 15, 2017
2:41 PM
I've played around with the more advanced stuff, but really I pick up my new harp and see how it sounds. If something is misaligned or not responding well I gap/align it. I swap combs if it's in the budget. Whip em off when I finish playing, use toothpicks to get the crud around the holes when it becomes visible.

When I'm able to, with my limited technical skills, I play around with new ideas. I made covers that attach magnetically instead of with screws, (fine with one set of harps, but a problem with pulling off more covers if you have them together or around other magnets), and have other weird ideas, but in those cases it's more about figuring out if something would work in theory rather than refining a finished project.

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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
Gnarly
2238 posts
Jun 15, 2017
3:37 PM
When I first starting playing harmonicas, working on them was an unfamiliar concept. My journey to becoming a tech began when I realized that I could not afford to pay someone to do what I wanted to have done.
The big breakthrough for me was when my friend John Frazer gave me a big box of Hohner 260 chromatics to refurbish. I replaced the broken reeds with donors from goners, gave him some and tried some different tunings.
Chroms are much more fiddly than diatonics . . .
The thing is, there is a lot that a player can do to maintain and improve their harps if they so desire. The guy I always think about when this subject comes up is Mooncat--he plays great, and has a well known tech doing a lot of his customizing, but is capable of improving his own harmonicas when it's necessary--as well as crafting instruments for sale when he isn't living in a van.
I guess if you have a career that keeps you from playing a lot, spending money on repairs and customization makes sense. So don't lose my number LOL
SuperBee
4740 posts
Jun 15, 2017
3:43 PM
Leaving aside the merits of particular techniques, as far as I'm concerned working on harps is practice time. There are certain things I've learned through the focus of repairs and tuning that I wasn't noticing through playing with jam tracks and doing exercises. There's an intensity of focus when tuning a harp to play Octave splits for instance, which may be hard to conjure when running an exercise drill. Especially when you're doing the work for someone else. You better be capable of playing those splits or how are you gonna tune them. Same with dynamics and tone, when you've installed a new reed in someone's custom harp, you need that new reed to sound at home in that harp. That'll really make you pick up your listening skill, and focus on the way you play to produce different sounds. And so on. I don't see time spent working on harps as 'down time'. It's intense practice time. Not rhythm and time and melodic harmony perhaps, although you have to test your work, but nonetheless there is always learning going on.
Re the OP; I fix them. If they bug me I find out why and fix it if I can.
EddieBlz
6 posts
Jun 16, 2017
12:45 AM
I know I'm new to the forum but I thought I'd put my 2 cent's in here. I've been playing guitar on and off for about 40 years, I've only become serious for about 15. The first thing I did when I became serious, was to become a Decent Luthier. I set up, repair and maintain all my own equipment. I was into Archery and shot semi-pro for a while, during that time I learned how to be a bowyer. Nobody touched my equipment. I've always worked on and maintained my own vehicles, I'm an electrician, HVAC tech., and a plumber so I do all repairs on my house. I've aways believed if I was going to do something that I need to do it 100%. Now I've only been playing on the harp for about 4 months (I wanted to learn how to play "when the levee breaks". It didn't go to well) so it wasn't until about a month or so ago that I've actualy started learning how to play. That was when I clicked on Adam Gussow's video "Blues Harmonica 101: the essential lesson for beginners". I found out through his vids that I was using the wrong kind of harps. Anyway I really couldn't afford to go down to Guitar Center and start buying new Harps so I went on ebay. So the next thing I did was through Adam's vids and others was how to repair and maintain harmonicas. I bought a Marine Band key of A 1896, which was in the back of an old music shop and never been played. I bought a Big River Harp Key of C which was in almost new condition and a Pro harp key of D which was in decent shape. The first thing I did with all of them was open them and set them up as I was learning on the vids. This also taught me alot on how harps work. The best find I got tho was the first harp I found and bought. It was a pre WWII Old StandBy Key of C. I was in excellent condition for what was probably a 100 year old harp. No stains or pitting on the plate covers. The combs are in very good condition. There was a problem with the nails and nail holes, also there was minor corrosion on the reeds but they cleaned up very nice and adjusted very well. They just don't make brass like that any more. With the plate cover's I bought some 2m black machined screws with nuts and washers. I then drilled out the nail holes to the screw sizes. To stablelize it I put washers between the cover plates and the combs. the 2m washers gave the harp and interesting side effect. The sound resonates through the plate covers better giving the harp a fuller sound.
Anyway back to my point, For me I believe that any type of activity that I'm going to do like this be it as a hobby or doing it professionally it's important to become a good technition at it. That way I'm able to customize it to my own needs.
Martin
1187 posts
Jun 16, 2017
10:14 AM
Working on harmonicas is a pain. I´m not very good at it, downright awful actually, and therefore avoid all but the most elementary intrusions, e.g. tuning -- could equal filling up the bike with gas.
So, a complete romanticin the Pirsig sense.
Then on the other hand, I´m what could be described as an avid reader, and although I can find typography slightly interesting, I´m completely indifferent to, say, bookbinding.
The parallell is a bit shaky, I admit.
The Iceman
3181 posts
Jun 16, 2017
12:39 PM
As a pianist and also a piano technician, I play the instrument and also tune/regulate it.

I wouldn't consider working on your own piano to be an important part of learning to play it, but this may be an unfair comparison as it takes a lot longer to learn tuning/repair on a piano than it does to learn to tune/regulate a harmonica.

Maybe this is just apples/orange comparison.

I did enjoy learning to work on harmonicas, but sort of always put it off as long as I could, as I didn't enjoy this aspect much. It is valuable as a harmonica player, though.
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The Iceman
shakeylee
661 posts
Jun 16, 2017
2:23 PM
well,there are fun things,like putting a suzuki clutch in a triumph,or putting a triumph engine in a norton frame.

then there are necessary things like setting the timing or doing a top end.

then,there are things that are a pain,like changing clutches in a motoguzzi,or swing arm bushings,or fork work or norton timing chains.

everybody should know how to use a set of tire irons,or change points on dark night,but

does everyone need to know how to put an ironhead top end on a flathead 45? or put a sportster flywheel in a military scout?or if you prefer BSA,an A10 flywheel in an A65?

so,with harmonicas,i like to mix brands and set gaps . but,tuning,i do because i have to.

also,i like to set gaps wide for hard blues,but i taper down for the 6 OB. that's a pain!




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www.shakeylee.com
Goldbrick
1828 posts
Jun 16, 2017
4:25 PM
Back when I used to be into bikes- Ed Labelle had a shop in West Philly and he built an amazing bike with a Vincent motor in a custom hardtail frame. I got to ride it once- what a beauty
snowman
260 posts
Jun 17, 2017
8:45 AM
I became obsessed with [overblows ,draws years ago]== Bought many tools , books videos—The good I got out of it was ;

1] learning to tune a reed [they are usually flat] usually after years of playing that harp

2] learning to repace individual reeds
I love Manjies and have a few-but they don’t sell individual reeds so crossover is my main harp and GM

3] I learned , I like my 7 draw flatted a ½ step on only “blues harps’
and keep a set of harps for Neil young, Dylan type stuff-with normal 7 draw
They are all color coded with either powder coat and or clearcoated w/ automotive clear coat
I know ocd- but it makes for quick rack changes

4] How to gap for “ me”

5] how to “not emboss” unless needed-
That’s just me I destroyed a lot of reeds to learn
‘ it only takes a few swipes w/ emboss tool’
DON’T OVER DO IT—ITS BRASSl

6] where to get [tools reeds, plates, covers etc]

In conclusion;
Most Good Harps now start at about $45-They are expensive –
Im an advocate of getting the tools for and learning how to
1] tune
2] gap [ and learn how to free a stuck reed
[usually mustache hair for me]

Optional
3] maybe replace individual reeds—
-I had to replace an entire manji reed plate because
I messed up a reed [messing with embossing]
I know Im an idiot
Hohner sp 20 –GM-- crossover and Mband---use the same reeds not plate but reeds
So I steal from my old harps or
buy from hohner

Gap and tune for sure in my case only when necessary
Hope this helps

Last Edited by snowman on Jun 17, 2017 8:51 AM
nacoran
9492 posts
Jun 17, 2017
9:32 AM
"everybody should know how to use a set of tire irons,or change points on dark night."

I like my car, for the most part. I got a small car because I wanted to be able to fit in small spots downtown going to shows (and hey, it's much easier to fit harmonicas in a car than a guitar). Unfortunately, my car doesn't have (or even have room for) a spare tire. It comes with an industrial can of fix a flat. Oh well. I can change a tire in a pinch. The last two times I had to I called AAA though, once because it was an ice storm and a AAA guy can change it in 5 minutes and it takes me 20, and the other when I was at a show with my friend. We carpooled and he hit a pothole and took out a tire. It was a nice day on a slow side street so we decided we'd tackle it ourselves, but he had a comically undersized lug wrench and whoever had tightened the bolts before must have thought he was a comedian with a pneumatic wrench.

Snowman, on the topic of mustache hair, I have a pretty impressive goatee/mustache. I used to rip hairs out constantly, but it almost never happens anymore. I'm not sure if I've subtly adjusted my technique. It might just be that I've ripped the trouble making hairs out so many times they've stopped growing back, leaving me with a better behaved mustache.

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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
AppalachiaBlues
26 posts
Jul 03, 2017
1:58 PM
I started playing around 1990 with two harps: a Marine Band and a (pre-MS) Blues Harp. Both were nailed together. It never occurred to me that I could/should disassemble them. So I never did. I would clean the holes out with a twisted tissue. The Marine Band died young, but the Blues Harp provided 6-8 years of good playing, with zero maintenance.

Late 90s, I got a Golden Melody and a Special 20. Screws!!! Curiosity led me to open them up right away. I intuitively started "plinking", and performed regular cleaning with isopropyl alcohol. I never thought of gapping, at the time. I did take some sandpaper to those sharp edges of the Golden Melody.

Around 2006, I started to play more seriously. At some point after that I stumbled upon Adam's Youtube video about gapping, with a thin banking machine receipt. Of course! Why did I not think of this before! I started to learn how to set my gaps. I also started to "feel" how harps are gapped, and started to understand reed response and reed choking.

Over the past 10 years, I've accumulated a big collection of SP20s, MB Deluxes/Crossovers, Session Steels, Hammonds, and Manjis. In addition to cleaning and gapping, I started to flat sand the draw plates, flat sand combs (of Manjis), and gently stepped into light embossing (which might turn out to be my gateway drug).

I am intrigued by reed shaping. I read the rather long and deep forum discussion about this, which I think Michelle started - or at least she contributed heavily to it. I'm still not sure what the shape should look like, or how to do it. (Michelle, your love of physics is impressive!)

I have neither the patience nor the interest in tuning harps. The tuners I have used seem to bounce around a lot, depending on how hard you play the reed. I don't trust my ear for intonation. So when my Hohners go out of tune, I just send them to a professional to put them right. My Seydels and Suzukis almost never go noticeably out of tune.

I think my tinkering, gapping, sanding, etc. has made a difference in the playability of my harps. It has also made me a better player, because I understand the instrument better. I am curious to learn more... but sometimes I find it really time-consuming, and I hate losing a Sunday afternoon to this kind of stuff.

Last Edited by AppalachiaBlues on Jul 03, 2017 2:20 PM
Irish Soul
22 posts
Jul 03, 2017
9:20 PM
I like working on harps....I had to learn and continue to learn...no other options. I bought a good set of tools from Andrew Zajac and Rockin Ron...and have just kept going. Where I will decide to stop I don't know, but so far I've had good luck. Sometimes if I get frustrated playing some bench time puts my head right and vice versa.


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