harponica
73 posts
Dec 21, 2012
8:32 AM
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How many days,months,years,decades,went by until one guy came along and produced a vertical milled reed harp with superior reeds on his first attempt.Amazing,what luck.But was quickly ushered out."Now don't do that no more,young man."Here at the institute of immoral learning we mill the reeds horizontal for increased sales volume,everyone knows that,we've all agreed to that,its in the best interest of the industry,blah,blah,blah.You know the rules,your outta here.
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HarpNinja
3027 posts
Dec 21, 2012
8:47 AM
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I would love for you to post some even soft evidence that reeds were intentionally, and continue to be, intentionally milled horizontally just so reeds will, thus increasing sales.
I would also LOVE to hear even anecdotal evidence that non-Harrison companies started to use this process with THEIR alloys and found it to be a bad idea.
I would also really appreciate some insight from people who have actually manufactured reeds regarding horizontal and vertically milled reeds.
To answer your post, zero. I am going to guess that has never happened.
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HarpNinja
3028 posts
Dec 21, 2012
8:49 AM
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I can hear the dead horse being beaten:
http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/board/board_topic/5560960/2437098.htm
My suggestion is to not play so hard you break reeds alot.
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HarpNinja
3029 posts
Dec 21, 2012
8:50 AM
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http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/board/board_topic/5560960/2276393.htm
What did the horse ever do to you? Why!? Why!?
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HarpNinja
3030 posts
Dec 21, 2012
8:50 AM
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http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/board/board_topic/5560960/4219100.htm
He's already dead! Why!?
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Custom Harmonicas
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MP
2605 posts
Dec 21, 2012
1:20 PM
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Merry Christmas harponica.!
i was amused. there are areas of manufacturing that do work in a similar fashion to your sarcasm though i believe vertical milling has been attempted before the introduction of the B-Rad. don't quote me but it may have been.
have a good day. Mark
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MP
affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name [MP] for info-
repair videos on YouTube.
you can reach me via Facebook. Mark Prados
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Brendan Power
313 posts
Dec 22, 2012
12:37 AM
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If you think about the reed profile and the aim of producing hundreds or thousands of identically-profiled reeds produced in a batch, the 'horizontal' approach is clearly a far easier, quicker and cheaper way to achieve it.
Watching the YouTube videos of the Hohner and Seydel companies producing reeds, you can see that the strip of brass from which they are made goes through the milling machine at quite a lick. The internal rotary disc cutter is set so that the correct profile is given to the entire sheet. After that the individual reeds are punched out to make reeds of identical length and shape for a certain pitch.
But milling isn't the only way to produce reeds 'horizontally'. The Japanese companies Tombo and Suzuki plane their reed profiles instead. A strip of brass is fixed to a large spinning wheel and then a stationary shaped cutter is moved inwards, producing the correct profile and thickness along the whole length of the brass strip. Watch this Tombo video from 0:30-0:45
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvpRtQC4U94
There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that's built up over decades that Suzuki and Lee Oscar reeds (made by Tombo) last longer than other brands. That's certainly my experience and the main reason I started playing Suzuki reedplates from the late 80s onwards.
I'd suggest that the planing process leaves fewer horizontal score marks across the reed than milling. It's those tiny marks that create the stress points that allow fractures to develop and reeds to fail.
Turning the process 90 degrees and doing it 'vertically' is a different proposition altogether! I'm just guessing here, but I assume it can be done with a CNC milling machine with a single shaft cutter making programmed height adjustments along the length of the reed's profile. However, many many passes would have to be made in this way to turn out a single strip of brass with the same profile along it, from which reeds could be punched.
If that's how Harrison did it, then I can understand why no-one has copied him : too laborious and therefore not cost-effective. And in a way it is still not truly 'vertical' milling, as the cutter is rotating horizontally as it moves down the reed's length.
But perhaps I've not understood the 'vertical milling' process correctly. If so, hopefully someone can enlighten me.
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STME58
338 posts
Dec 22, 2012
1:04 AM
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Thanks for posting the pointer to the Lee Oscar video. That is an interesting machine they use for the reed profiling. I would expect that process to leave smaller scratches that the high speed rotary cutter I saw in the Hohner video. Both systems will leave more scratches if the blade is allowed to become dull or damaged. The best equipment in the world won't make a good product if it is not operated with skill and attention to detail.
Has anyone ever heard of reeds being coined or rolled to profile? This would leave no machining marks and the additional work hardening might make a stronger reed. I expoect the reason things like this are not done is because the small volume of harps made does not justify the tooling expense. Does anyone have any idea how many high end harps the major manufactures make per year?
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
1450 posts
Dec 22, 2012
3:16 AM
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I almost never blow reeds out.
Being one of a very, very, very few people who know how the horizontal milling was done at HH, I can tell you, nobody is refusing to lengthwise mill just for the hell of it. It's not an easy thing to figure out how to do. I can't really say anything about it how it worked, but the lengthwise mill was a big technological breakthrough.
The lengthwise mill was explored in the 1930s by Alfred Dix. The machine wasn't very practical and I don't know that it ever got actually used, but he could vertically mill a reed with it.
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David
____________________
At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong.
R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne
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David
Elk River Harmonicas
 
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nacoran
6323 posts
Dec 22, 2012
10:34 AM
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It would be interesting to see if reeds could be printed. The price of 3D printers is coming down. You can get a 'home' one for about $1200 that does plastic, but there is supposed to be a new one coming out this year for about 3K that will print metal, and they have industrial ones that are used for printing computer chips. I have no idea what the strengths of a printed reed would be, but it sure would be fun to sit there and try different possibilities.
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Nate
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Frank
1689 posts
Dec 22, 2012
10:27 AM
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Could reeds be made out of spider silk?
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MP
2607 posts
Dec 22, 2012
10:50 AM
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Thanks for the wealth of info Brendan and Dave! made it well worth logging on today.
i do not have much experience w/ Suzuki harps but i am certain that Lee Oskar reeds are nearly indestructible.
once in a great while i'll replace one but it's rare.
i do think older LO reeds are better than the new ones and would recommend replacing a single reed rather than buying new plates if you have really old Oskars.
older LO reeds are very flexible and tune-up VERY quickly. i've never seen a harp so easy to tune.
i know a colorful character player/fisherman/scrimshaw artist [Louie The Fish]. he travels north and south Pacific w/ his set of ancient LOs in a 12 slot leather pouch. when he is in Honolulu i clean the verdigris (do to salt air) that seizes the reeds, tune, and he's good to go for another 10,00 miles.
by the way, i have a bunch of older LO harps that i can sell for a song. or trade. or give away. they are not pretty but OB well w/out noise and whistles and the all the three draw half steps bend clear strong and precise.
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MP
affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name [MP] for info-
repair videos on YouTube.
you can reach me via Facebook. Mark Prados
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nacoran
6324 posts
Dec 22, 2012
11:04 AM
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I've only ever once destroyed a Lee Oskar reed, and to be fair, I left it in the wash and the cover came off and a reed snagged on some clothes in the dryer cycle, and only one reed out of 20 was destroyed.
I do wish they had better screws on the cover plates. The nuts fall off all the time on a couple of them.
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Nate
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Thievin' Heathen
103 posts
Dec 22, 2012
11:08 AM
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Hey Mark, it's nice to know old LO's are preferred. I started buying them when I first noticed them as an alternative to the Hohners I was going through so fast, either bad technique on my part or poor QC on Hohner's. That must have been 1985, so I guess I've got about 20 of the good ones. I have just begun to experiment with tuning and customizing and now I know I should not be thinking of these as sacrificial lab rats.
I was recently comparing notes with another harp player on the subject of customizing. He's worked on a few of his also. He cracked me up, said, "none of his patients had survived the surgery".
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MP
2609 posts
Dec 22, 2012
12:09 PM
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from Thievn' Heathen,
"That must have been 1985, so I guess I've got about 20 of the good ones."
you probably concur but,
according to BBQbob and my own experience; from 85 to 92 were the bad years for Hohner. i first heard of Lee Oskars from Taj Mahal. He told me to try them out so i did. i found them to be the best playing harps on the market at that time. Huangs were not bad either, as long as you bought the Star Performer (the GM type model).
even so, i went on a Hohner GM kick during those years w/ occasional SPs. absolutely no MBs though. there is something about the Hohner tone that i can't shake.
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MP
affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name [MP] for info-
repair videos on YouTube.
you can reach me via Facebook. Mark Prados
Last Edited by on Dec 22, 2012 12:10 PM
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harponica
74 posts
Dec 22, 2012
12:43 PM
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There remains a large segment of the playing population whom are willing to pay the extra cash for a very well made ten hole.Of course only if the vertical milling process or a better way of making non fracturing reeds is developed.Someone can research the info I received lately from a pump organ restorer who told me the 100 yr. plus reeds in those units are vertically milled,and very rarely damaged,if ever.Stainless,bronze phosphorus,platinum,etc.none of my playing harps will be passed to the next generation like a nice old sax or guitar.Message on my head stone reads"Maybe in your generation,they will build it,I couldn't wait any longer".
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Martin
172 posts
Dec 22, 2012
3:48 PM
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"I am certain that Lee Oskar reeds are nearly indestructible."
Regrettably I´m very certain that they are destructible. I blow them out on an industrial scale. Not proud of it, and have worked on the problem, but there you go.
I´m also sad to say that they appear to me to be on a downhill slope as far as reed quality is concerned: LO´s are not my first choce of harps but I´ve resorted to them through the years because of a perceived durability, but not so anymore, and I´m more and more looking elswhere.
But kudos for the general availability of the spare reed plates.
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MP
2610 posts
Dec 22, 2012
5:11 PM
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Martin,
oh yeah, i agree. you can break anything. i just happened to notice that older LO reed failure is less
than Hohner. Don't care for new LO harps. actually, i don't really care for LOs at all. that's why i don't play them. it's more a matter of taste to me, rather than performance.
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MP
affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name [MP] for info-
repair videos on YouTube.
you can reach me via Facebook. Mark Prados
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nacoran
6325 posts
Dec 23, 2012
12:38 AM
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I was sitting watching TV today, and I was reassembling a harp. A reed snagged on my shorts and bent beyond it's limit.
Like I said, I'm usually pretty good on my harps, but now I think I've hit critical mass. I've got the L.O. I put through the dryer, a Sp20 I blew out and the Sp20 I snagged today. That over a $100 in harps sitting on the bench. I think it's time to try to learn reed replacement. I wish you could get single reeds for L.O.'s.
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Nate
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MP
2611 posts
Dec 23, 2012
2:32 PM
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nac,
i have single reeds for LOs.
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MP
affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name [MP] for info-
repair videos on YouTube.
you can reach me via Facebook. Mark Prados
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