laurent2015
393 posts
Aug 25, 2012
4:43 AM
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...on a A Hering Black Blues: installing a new reed.
Almost totally unexperienced, a friend and I attempted to use a reed from an old C Hohner harp, which reeds are slightly wilder than the Hering's ones.
We chose a proper length reed out of the Hohner, and sanded the shortest rod of the rivet and slightly hammered a nail through it: successfully.
Then, we had to carefully sand the tiny sides of the reed, to finally get a 2mm width, the size of the Hering's reeds (BTW, all Hering's reeds are 2mm width, but in a Hohner, the first six reeds are wider than the next four).
Since we were going to use a 1,2 mm width brass rod to fix the reed, we also slightly enlarged the original rivets'hole.
Here came the panting time: we cut a 3mm length bit out of the brass rod and inserted in on the hole, the reed having been fixed in the good axis with a sticky paper.
We next carefully slipped the plate into the jaws of a vise and slowly crushed the ends of the rod's bit: succeeded!
The lightslots appearing along the reed seemed the same as those of the other reeds, so the stuff was ready to try.
The sharpest A pitch was needed on the Hering: the new reed vibrated, but with an obvious leakage, and it was rending a kind of Ab, so sanding the free end of the reed would be inevitable.
Let's say that I got the right key after about one hour of trials and tests, but also worked to understand the cause of the leakage and operated to reduce it.
I ended by screwing the reed up, which broke.
I had however noticed a curious thing: the replacing reed was, above the plate, slightly higher level positionned compared to the others.
My buddy thought the explanation was an exceeding pressure from the vise's jaws, and we stopped there, planning to try back another day.
This morning home as I was concerned with that problem, I found the explanation for the reed's weird position AND especially the cause of the leakage.
Well: there's a right and a wrong side of a reed!
Actually, if you look through a magnifying lens, you'll notice that the small pierced square of the reed shows a tiny thickness on one side and no thickness on the other side of the reed: hence, broadly saying, the reed had been fixed on the wrong side!
Fortunately, it seems that the whole process remains valid and the different stages were interesting as much as rich in discoveries.
Last Edited by on Aug 26, 2012 8:20 AM
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