Everyone now knows of the superiority of the B-Rad. What would it take for other companies to produce a knock-off version .The vertical milled reed would have to remain the main selling point but the comb and covers would differ.This would seem to be a fantastic time to do this being the original maker is in disaray.
I would imagine that Brad got a trademark/patent/copyright/whatever on many elements of his design, including the milling of the reeds. At least, I hope he did. ---------- Todd L. Greene
Yeah, but the patchy elements of news on it have said that he's sold the rights to whatever company it is that's supposedly going to fulfill the orders still in queue. God knows... ---------- Hawkeye Kane
What would be interesting if they started offering reed plates for other models like the hohner Golden Melody. Of you already have a custom body this could work out pretty nice. ---------- Emile "Diggs" D'Amico a Legend In His Own Mind How you doin'
It seems to me that the Atty Gen ought to be seriously looking into whatever business transaction might have been made between Harrison and the "undisclosed company" to try and get these matters settled for everyone who's still in the dark about what's happening to their money. ---------- Hawkeye Kane
Last Edited by on Nov 03, 2011 11:19 AM
Maybe they never charged enough to begin with, if they were 200 bucks for a rolls royce version compared to about 40-50 for a hohner ootb then i think they sold themselves short, anyway they've gone bust and lost all good faith from fellow harpers.
I don't think there's any patent on milling reeds length-wise. Chris Reynolds milled a few length-wise reeds in matter of a few seconds while I was talking on the phone with him awhile back. (The guy's a machining genius.) It apparently isn't hard to do, but would be difficult and expensive for a large company like Hohner to change the programing on all of their machinery to mass produce these.
The reed milling thing has been done before. I think Rick Epping dug something up on it. I may be wrong, but the method has been employed before and the documents are on someone's site.
as far as patents go, I don't see there's much to patent. Design registration perhaps, but I guess that could only apply to shape of combs and cover plates.
Kinya has images of patents related to lengthwise milling in a B-radical review:
"According to historical records, there was only one harmonica reed manufacture who specialized in length-wise milled reeds. Patented on September 13, 1933, Alfred Dix, Gera/Thuringia, Germany was issued Patent No. 1,927,154 by the United States Patent Office, for his “Method and a Machine for Grinding of Tuning-Tongues (length-wise grounded reeds)”.
The thing is.... they can copy everything about it, but what they won't get is the attention to adjusting the reed arc and gap. This is the #1 thing that affects the playability of a harmonica, and there's no way Hohner is about to train its factory employees to spend 5 hours adjusting each harmonica so it plays well (as evidenced by their OOTB quality...)
Milling perpendicular to the way the reed is primarily stressed theoretically makes the reed weaker, thus shorter lived, more prone to breakage, and less stable with regards to tuning.
LSB is absoluty correct. I guess it may affect the playability a little? I don't know. It is not a difficult thing to do. Joe Filisko use to do it 20 years ago (and still may for some people). I'd bet thats how Brad Harrison found out about it. The stupid tuning practices that the manufacturers perform on harps is by far a bigger problem than the milling marks not going in the direction of the reed.
in-built obsolesence? If they mill the reeds lengthwise, then reed life will be longer If reed life is longer they will sell fewer harps If they sell fewer harps they need to increase the price to reflect the decrease in sales. People don't like price increases...
I think everyone is missing the point of the B-Rad. Brad is a metallergist, he didn't design it overnight. Everything he manufactured was new, different materials, patented alloys, and months of testing. That was just for the design. Now to put it all together. He didn't just have it manufactured and slap it all together. From everything I've read he was involved in every aspect of the assembly and tuning. This was part of his undoing, he insisted on top quality and couldn't build these harps in a timely manner, in other words, it took too long to build, he lost money. This was not an assembly line quick build harp. I doubt a knock-off is ever going to compare.
Brad has a degree in metallurgical engineering? What was he doing managing a steak house before starting HH?
As for coming up with new materials, I don't think so. The covers, combs and screws are all commonly available materials, and I find it VERY difficult to believe that Brad actually invented some new alloy for the reeds and/or plates, in fact I'm calling BS.
The manufacturing processes for the parts were not new either, he simply applied existing, common technology to the manufacture of the parts, with the possible exception of the reeds. I understand the reed milling machine may have been unique, but many unique machines are made to produce parts for all sorts of things, in fact that's just one more common process Brad applied. If you go to any of the big harmonica makers, all have specialized machinery.
So really, only the design of the harmonica, the promised special attention to tuning, set-up, and overall "quality".....only those things were unique to HH.
Langthwise milling - if you polish the reeds, this will make a "regular" reed stronger.
Comb, covers, etc - does not count at all. You know where to get custom combs for any model on the market. B-rad covers have very bad coating that look like this after some time.
Reeds on screws - don't make reed exchange easier. You still need to tune the reed. And that means you have to have a repair toolkit anyway.
The reeds are still a brass alloy - they get out of tune like any other brass reed.
The only selling point they had was lots of hand work by professional customisers.
The promise was a great playing, well tuned instrument out of the box. The hope was that because of the build quality it would also outlast other harps. The one I actually received was well designed, seemed very well built and played well. The alloy used for reedplates is unknown. Brads suggested that it was an improvement over current designs. I have no reason to doubt him. I just think it is naive to think that someone can jump right in and produce a similar product in a short time and cheaper.
I doubt anyone in China thinks they can sell enough to make it worthwhile, but they could certainly do it no problem. One need look no further than what Eastman did with Violins, Mandolins, and acoustic Jazz guitars, all of which require significant handwork by skilled craftsmen. Several Flute companies have done the same.
When you only have to pay people $10 a day, you can make anything inexpensively.
Can we get a statement here from any representative of a major harmonica manufacturer why they persist in milling they're reeds horizontally instead of vertically?
No established manufacturer is going to make any change that effects the useable life of a product, unless their customers are prepared to pay significantly more.
It's not just as simple as waking up and saying "let's mill the reeds lengthways today". They will have to invest some serious money in new machinery.
Regarding the power bender tuning, unless you can really play a harmonica dont even attempt these things, PB sounds cool in the right hands, there are some shockers out there btw.
Last Edited by on Nov 07, 2011 1:30 AM
