[Harp-L] Re: Reed Profile - More questions

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Crazy Bob (and he must be fairly deranged to ask this kind of stuff)  
wrote:

> <From an industrial point of view, I find it hard to imagine that  
> two additional milling steps would be applied to individual reeds.  
> Given the tiny size of the individual reeds, I would think it would  
> be cost-prohibitive to manipulate each reed so that it could be  
> specifically milled.>

Indeed it would

<(1) Are specific reed profiles (mensurs?) milled in one pass?>

Reed brass strips are milled only once and then individual reeds of a  
single mensur are chopped out of the strip. There is no further work  
on the profile.

<(2) Are the weights (blobs) on the end of the lower pitched reeds  
milled as part of the mensurs milling process?>

Yes

<(3) Regardless of the process, is specific response (the flexibility  
of the reed, for lack of a better terminology) the reason for using a  
weight at the free end of the lower-pitched reed, rather than a more  
gradual taper (possibly requiring a much thinner reed)?>

No, it's a matter of getting a reed of a particular length to sound  
with a certain pitch, otherwise one would indeed need thousands of  
different sized reeds and it would be impossible to use only 2  
mensurs for all keys.

<(4) Is manufacturing convenience the reason for milling across the  
reed (laterally) instead of milling along the length of the reed  
(longitudinally)? In my ignorance, I assume that might be one of the  
reasons for earlier reed fatigue.>

You'd need an awfully large and accurate milling tool to cut a  
significant number of reeds lengthways at one time. It's important to  
sharpen the tools regularly to reduce surface roughness and thus  
early reed fatigue.

<(5) Given that the milling process is applied to the upper side of  
the strip of brass, I assume that the lower side of the brass is  
completely flat. Is that so?>

Yes

Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com