I just replaced a reed successfully on an old Sp20 for the first time! Wohoo! I feel a deep satisfaction about this. It would be nice to become so confident about this that breaking a reed would no longer be a constant fear when working on harmonica's. I fear though, that I might never be. Besides, the reed was very easy to allign... Tight enough to work, but not perfect at all. Rivets don't seem very re-usable?
So I did some youtube-research. First solution: B-Radicals come to the market (replacement-reeds available and screwable), which would be excellent btw. Or something I found in an excellent video by Brendan Power. He screws reeds on using tiny 'self-tapping' bolts.
I was wondering. Does anybody know where these are to be obtained? Does everyone use these? They seem very usable for any harmonica..
Check this vid. Power drills the reed a tadbit wider than the reedplate, enabling one to do some final alignment before screwing down completely. A pleasure to watch such a skillfull craftsman!
I believe he says in the video that the self-tapping screws can be bought from Suzuki.
To answer you other question, yes, rivets can generally be reused. Practice makes perfect. If you want technical perfection, though, you probably want to use a fresh rivet. However, for most people, a reused is just fine.
Another technique is to just use a screw. I can't find self-tapping screws, but have success with using a tap. I reckon in the long run it saves money.
Here is the video. I don't know where to get the self-tapping screws.
A tap carves threads into a hole. I find a 1.6 mm tap works perfectly - you don't need to drill the hole from a Hohner rivet - it's already the correct size, just pop out the rivet and tap the hole. I use M1.6 machine screws for reeds. I will drill the rived hole out with a 1/16th drill bit for clearance or even the next drill bit up in a standard set if the holes are really misaligned. There is plenty of room on the rivet pad.
I'll just pop by the iron store and check if they have all that ;)
Tanks for explaining! If anyone does know where to get the self-tappers. I would like to know. I mean, if they are not too expensive, perhaps they are more accurate than my tapping. Let me correct that: I'm sure they will :)
