Philosofy
495 posts
Nov 20, 2013
12:37 PM
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I don't have a lot of experience in this, but I made some brass combs for my Suzuki Manji's. It seems that reed plates for the Promaster, Bluesmaster, and Bushman will fit the comb. The Manji's just have cover holes closer to the front.
Now, I know I would have to drill different reed plate screw holes, and different cover plate screw holes, but how standard is the slot spacing on the Manji? Will it fit most Hohner diatonics? What about Seydel or Lee Oskar?
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harpwrench
725 posts
Nov 20, 2013
1:09 PM
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MB and Manji reed spacing is close but not exact. If the tines on the custom comb aren't too fat there's some swapping potential. Brad was selling MBs with Firebreath rosewood combs before the B-Radical business.
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arzajac
1208 posts
Nov 20, 2013
2:12 PM
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Phil, are you starting from scratch, or using combs that you already drilled for Manji? Because hole position will be a bigger challenge than the shape of the slots if you have holes already drilled.
MB, Manji and Lee Oskar have similar slot distances while Seydel are completely different.
Just last week, I made a custom GM comb designed to fit (trimmed) 1847 plates for a customer in Europe. But I made that comb from scratch by cutting and pasting the Seydel tines and screw positions onto my GM drawing - not by trimming an existing comb.
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.
Last Edited by arzajac on Nov 20, 2013 2:13 PM
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Philosofy
496 posts
Nov 20, 2013
6:34 PM
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Andrew,
I'm kind of starting from scratch. I've gotten a lot of requests from friends, so I figured I'd make a bunch of combs. I start with the slots. If I recall correctly, its 11/32" wide slots with the tines being 1/8". Then I double stick tape the comb I'm copying on top to drill the holes. I have a fixture with an 11/32" drill bit in it next to a fence, so the combs line up perfectly.
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arzajac
1209 posts
Nov 21, 2013
8:11 AM
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If you are working from scratch and cutting by hand, the differences between tine distances among brands should be within your tolerances - when I overlap my drawings, the tine spaces are within a hair of one another. Tine lengths vary, though.
Doing that all by hand is a lot of work - I commend your efforts! If you are making them for others, you may not want to part with them once you are finished!
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.
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Philosofy
497 posts
Nov 21, 2013
1:41 PM
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I have an assembly line type setup on my router table with an 11/32" bit, and my router fence can be dialed in to 1/64" inch. I made a sled to hold the brass, and the only thing I 'freehand" is the slot length. I set the router fence, run several combs, then adjust the fence, rinse, repeat. For flattening them, I have sandpaper grits from 120 to 6,000 on plate glass, and made a holder that velcros to my random orbit sander. The holder handles two combs at a time. Its still very time consuming.
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