-I just found these two videos and they explain something about reeds that I never knew, i.e they all have various amounts of metal shaved off before they are stamped out.
So, here is a question... why aren't there composite reeds? I know there are alloys, but it seems that different parts of the reeds have different stress loads. The solution in old bows (the weapon, not the violin accessory) they used multiple materials.
I'm going to have to draw another crazy invention now. Nice vid GH.
Hohner has tried plastic reeds and they are god awful. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I wasn't thinking plastic (I've got a Magnus). I was thinking of something way more complicated! Maybe some sort of metal laminate...
I don't know, just brainstorming. One of these days I'll post a thread with all my crazy harmonica 'innovations' and you'll all know the depths of my madness.
This is why I keep wondering about titanium. There is a certain range of motion in titanium where no metal fatigue occurs (I guess some grades of steel too). If that range is less than the range of motion of a reed being played hard theoretically they'd never break.
The thing is as follows: What you want from a reed is a certain elasticity and a certain weight. The elasticity is important so that it starts swinging easily. The weight is important so that there is something that swings. If they are very light there is very little weight swinging which simply feels different. I noticed that with very cheap china harps (for instance the colored once for a couple of bucks), the material is very light and thus the reed feels very light when played. Also the material is very hard (when I tried to emboss it) which may also result in it being 'stiff'.
The third property that you'd like is a balance between being soft enough so that they are easily workable and hard enough that they don't scratch at every touch.
What we should do is check out different metals and compare these factors... (after my exams... :).
Making the reed out of two materials doesn't seem very practical with such a small reed,... but why not. Maybe some kind of high tech reeds in 2050 or something... :)
---------- Don't engage in negativity!
Last Edited by on Aug 30, 2010 2:43 PM
