Gnarly
22 posts
Apr 03, 2011
9:58 AM
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Hello all--
I just did a repair job for a well known harpist, and one of his harps needing repair was a high D chromatic--a whole step higher than normal.
So the donor reeds I had were not acceptable, and I had to raise the pitch of a reed using silver solder near the rivet end.
Any thoughts on this use and how would you raise a reed beyond what could be done by removing material from the tip?
I would not have had any tip left!
How about some tips?
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AirMojo
140 posts
Apr 03, 2011
10:28 AM
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I once tried weighing the rivet end with Blu-Tac to raise the pitch... seemed logical to me... but it didn't work... it was like the reed lost its 'springiness'.
I was attempting to retune an E harp to "B-Thing" tuning and the 1 draw needed to be raised 3 semi-tones, which was alot... I probably would've screwed up the harp for sure, so I figured the "Blu-Tac" would be a safe way of trying the tuning.
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7LimitJI
448 posts
Apr 03, 2011
11:03 AM
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I've only soldered once at the tip to lower the pitch.
I don't need to now as I have spare reeds or donor plates.
The solder was successful.
I have also read that Blu-tac can be used.
I reckon you need to speak to chromatic or accordion players as they have been doing this for a long time.
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Gnarly
23 posts
Apr 03, 2011
11:06 AM
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This method probably only works for chromatic, I agree about the springiness.
My question really is, if you need a reed to be higher pitched and you can remove no more material at the tip, what do you do?
And this question is most certainly open to everyone, regardless of their instrument.
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nacoran
3954 posts
Apr 03, 2011
12:05 PM
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You could theoretically shorten the slot to let you shorten the reed more. TurboHarp is doing something with magnets on steel reeds to adjust the frequency, but I don't know exactly what they are doing. There might be something with profiling the reeds to keep the springyness, but I'm just guessing.
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
620 posts
Apr 03, 2011
12:23 PM
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When you weight the rivet end, the reed can't bend like it should, it's a dead reed. If you can pull it off,congrats in advance.
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Last Edited by on Apr 03, 2011 2:33 PM
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chromaticblues
749 posts
Apr 03, 2011
2:07 PM
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Yeah Gnarly I read somewhere awhilr ago that it is possible to do what you trying. I tried it a couple times and it doesn't work!
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Gnarly
24 posts
Apr 03, 2011
11:43 PM
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Well, I think it is working as well as it can--I am going to check the instrument once again tomorrow before I send it off, and see if my client likes it well enough.
It is a chromatic . . . but he bends a lot.
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