Re: Re: longevity of custom harps



- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Moyer" <wmharps@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: Re: longevity of custom harps


>
> Mark wrote:
> > I wonder if [tuning by filing reeds diagonally] is a case of
> > built-in obsolescence?
>
> At SPAH2002 in Columbus I watched a video in the Hohner room about
> how Hohner harmonicas are made.  The point of the video, I think, was
> to compare the handmade process used to produce the Marine Band,
> Special 20 and Golden Melody to the MS process used to produce that
> line (Cross Harp, Pro Harp, Meisterklasse, etc.).  Of course, the MS
> process is highly automated, using wonderfully complex machines to do
> things like attach reeds to plates, set reed offset (gap) and tune.
>
> The handmade process is -- in a word -- handmade.  Reeds are attached
> to plates with a hand machine.  Gaps are set by eye and by hand with
> a shim slid between the reeds and plates.  Tuning is done by hand on
> a bench by a technician with a file.  I think looking beyond Hohner's
> desire to minimize the amount of time (and, therefore, money) spent
> setting up each harmonica is reading too much into this.  Filing is
> simply the fastest way to get the job done.
>
> -tim
 Hi,
>From a good friend of mine who had the privilege of getting a tour of the
factory, he had found out that the people doing the tuning (and Rick Epping
confirmed to me that these people, unlike the previous generations of
families with perfect pitch hearing that previously had been doing this work
were not well trained) are only allowed 5 minutes per harmonica to do the
job, and frankly, from my own experience, to do real good job takes FAR
longer to do an entire harmonica. The use of a file, and the fact that they
file diagonally across the reed rather than straight down, parallel to the
length of the reed has long been a complaint of many players and heavily
contributes to their lack of longevity.

Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA





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