Just watched the harp cleaning lecture video by Jason Ricci, in it he mentions replacing his marine band nails with hex head screws from micro mark. Seeing if anyone had some further advice on this.
I use M2 screws and nuts. 10mm screws are the perfect length. 3/8 of an inch are just too short.
I do it like this:
I use a paring knife to pry off the coverplates. I slip the blade between the coverplate and the reedplate. I back the knife off and the nails (they look like screws but they are small nails) are pushed up. I use a small wire cutter to pull the nail out. You can probably use any other plier tool to pry them out.
I do the same with the reedplates. I don't pry them off but push the nails up and then pull them out. This prevents the reedplate for getting bent and the comb from getting scratched.
I use #52 and #46 drill bits to drill holes in the reedplates and the comb. I use a drill press to make perfectly straight holes. Use the smaller drill bit on the draw plate. Then, I tap the draw plate so that I don't have to use nuts on the reedplates. I only use nuts on the coverplate screws.
I sand the comb perfectly flat. I draw pencil lines across the comb and sand with 400 grit (or better) sandpaper. I sand the draw reedplate too so that it's surface is perfectly flat. Tape a slip of paper under the reeds so that you don't push them through the slots onto the sandpaper and you sand them.
I only put two holes in the coverplates. I use one screw on either side of the front of the harp. I think that helps with keeping things airtight. I think if screws were to clamp down on the back of the harp, that would encourage the front to open up and that would make it more leaky. Anyway, two screws are less work and there is no advantage to putting two more in the back.
I find that I need to use a file to make the holes I drill in the coverplates bigger so that I can get the screw to line up perfectly so that I can fit the nut and tighten it.
The first harp I ever did took me about eight hours to do. I can do all of that in about 20-40 minutes now.
I do almost the same but use 4 screws on the covers. If not, the back of the covers come up and you can snag it on everything.Just put all 4 screws in, get the front of the covers in the reedplate slot and tighten the front screws first. Then the back.
Not trying to better arzajac, but I did the front only once. I carry my harp in my shirt pocket and it weren't purty. YMMV
I used Arzajac's method and (at least that part of the mod) worked. If you are converting the reed plate nails too make sure you are super precise with tapping the screws straight, and if you are swapping out the comb make sure you have the right comb/plates combo. I went through all the trouble of tapping a Low F and then realized my new comb only fit a higher harp and the covers for MB's and SP20's aren't interchangeable!
I never tap the screws. I like using nuts, for the specific reason a nut distributes the force across a larger area, thus, in my opinion, allows the plates to be held flatter. ----------
"There are only two things money can't buy - true love and homegrown tomatoes." - Lewis Grizzard
My nuts kept falling out. That can get you in a lot of trouble in some places. Do you use loctite or washers? I was afraid of getting them too tight and deforming something or cracking the comb.
I modified two of my Marine Bands using pretty much the same method. I also sealed the combs using non toxic wood oil which took a couple of days of applying and drying.
I must confess, I now use Marine Band Deluxe harps and save myself the bother!
Last Edited by on Feb 20, 2011 8:46 AM
