[Harp-L] New process for treaing reeds



When I first started blowing harps, about 10 years ago or so, I blew out mostly 4 and 5 draw reeds at least once or twice in a 4 hour gig.  I bought a bunch of different kinds of harps and had the same experience with all of them.  I was telling a friend, who was an engineer about my problems and he suggested that tried to cryogenically treat them.  Cryogenics is a process where you freeze items with liquid nitrogen at a controlled rate and then bring them back at another controlled rate.  It seems that machine tools are treated and they last substantially longer than untreated ones.  Also supposedly the reason that razor blades last so much longer now than they used to was because of the treatment.  It is supposed to relax and line up the molecules, and relieve the stress gained in the manufacturing process.

I was put in touch with a company in Toledo Ohio, and discussed it with them, and they said that they do brass instruments for the local Symphony and other musicians, and that the Horn Players are very happy with the results, and they reported that there was a big improvement in sound.  The treatment is not expensive, but they charge by the pound, and there was a minimum charge of about $50 if I remember correctly. I could not come up with enough reed plates to make up a good order, so I got together with Dwight Grimm, of That One Dude Harp Fame, and we sent in a bunch of plates to be frozen.  I think that Dwight reported our project to Harp-l back then.  When we got the plates back, a week or so later, I anticipated a great improvement in both sound, and longevity.  Well, the sound didn't change that I could tell.  My tone sucked before and after the freezing, and still does today.  However, I did not seem to blow out harps at the same rate as I did before.  I think the reality of it was that I was learning not to blow so hard.

I happened to go the BHF that year, and I got into a conversation with Rick Epping, and told him of my efforts, and asked his opinion.  He stated, if I remember correctly, that he had heard of it, and his opinion was that it was a real thing, and could prolong the like of Harmonica Reeds.  When I asked him why Hohner did not go ahead and treat them at the factory, I left with the impression that it was not in their best interest to make them last longer. Of course the is IMHO.  I do know that some guitar strings are cryogenically treated, but I do not know what the benefits are in that situation.  I would imagine that the process of manipulating the reeds, and tuning them would add those stresses right back to the reeds.Who knows?

Now, I do not blow out too many reeds, and I am still playing some of the ones I had frozen.  Of course, thank to all of you guys I now work on my own, and I do not have to blow as hard to get the volume I need.

Well, Back to lurking.  



Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:34:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] New process for treating reeds
To: Harp L Harp L <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <79076.25104.qm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

It's probably been done before, I've been working and thinking for a year on this... -and I'm mentioning it now, so hopefully others won't have to go through the same amount of work... annealing reeds, although what the process I got in the end isn't exactly annealing and I'm getting good enough results now to mention it to folks. What got me thinking of this was something carried over from guns, when you reload brass rifle cartridges, before you load, you have to heat treat the cartridge brass to relieve the stress in the metal. Everytime you shoot a shell, stress builds up in the brass, so you anneal to soften the brass and relieve the stress in the metal. If you don't, eventually the brass is going to split when you shoot the cartridge. 
Harmonica reeds are certainly under less stress than the brass in a rifle shell. So, I got to thinking, what if I applied that process to harmonicas? Harmonica reeds have inherent metal stress in them from the factory. I thought that if I could relieve that stress in the metal, the reeds would maybe last longer... and I prefer - probably since I was a Marine Band player for 25 years - narrow, brass reeds. So, I've been working for a long time on things I could do to make my own improvements to the Seydel Solist. Many, many thanks to Randy Sandoval for educating me on metals... many thanks, he really helped me eliminate a good bit of trial and error. I've experiemented with different kinds of heating, heating in different places, heating for different times, different temps, quenching, not quenching, etc. 
Anyway, I've found something that apparently works. I've got a couple of Ds now I'm working on for some guys, so I used those for the first official use of this process. 
The breakthrough was stopping short of annealing. Instead of using a high temperature, I used a lower temperature for a longer period of time. I had been getting close to this, but was still experimenting for the best temp, when Randy sent me something that said between 250 and 300 degrees would not make the brass softer (anneal), but would instead relieve the inherent stress in the metal and not change its temper. 

Today was the first time I did this for somebody's order. I was thinking longevity, which can not be tested this early, but what I got was a very noticeable improvement in response and a slight increase in volume... the difference was like how you feel when you go in and leave a chiropractor, perhaps for similar reasons. There was a very noticeable improvement... and it wasn't psycological because I wasn't expecting ANY improvement in response. But I got it. 

Another interesting note, there was one reed that took more effort to gap than the others... a 2 blow. I gapped and embossed before heat treating and after the treatment, all the gaps were the same. Except that 2 blow. It was way high. Now the gap adjustment is smoother... just an observation. 

Here's the process, it's so simple to describe, I kind of feel like a jackass for having worked at it so long. Time will tell if I can repeat these results over time...

Take two reedplates 500 degrees in the oven for one hour, cool at room temperature. 





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