Re: [Harp-L] Replaceable Reeds

joe leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:57:07 -0400

On Oct 22, 2010, at 2:01 AM, Rick Dempster wrote:
I use a brass 10BA cheeshead bolt Joe. (That was thanks to advice from
fellow Ozlander Lawrie Minson)  I've replaced heaps of reeds, and I've
only stripped the thread  (in the plate) once or twice.

Right, if you have a torque wrench already built into your touch, it  
works. But some people are heavy fisted and over tighten things.

I have a supply of nuts I bought years ago, but never use them, except

in the aforementioned couple of cases.

The 10BA is a pretty fine thread, so I reckon that's why I probably  
get

enough turns.

Right. if a plate is 1 mm thick, that's 1/25.4 of an inch. That  
equates to 3 turns for a 76 tpi screw. Most engineers like at least 3  
threads to be IN contact with a part.
This grade of bolt is getting a bit hard to find these days, though,
and the only other problem I've had is that they are thicker than the
rivet, so I have to open the hole in the reed a little.

Right, some use a fine file but I use a cruciform sewing needle.  
(That's one with a point that has 3 edges. The edges act as reamers).  
AND you can work to one side of the rivet hole if the hole doesn't  
match the reed plate hole.

If this goes off centre at all, it makes the reed hard to centre.

Right, see above
I've thought of going to 8BA or something else smaller, but it seems
with approaching old age and accompanying deterioration of eye-bones,
what I really need is a half inch Whitworth.

Ah-ha ha ha, I have a couple 1" SS bridge girder bolts I can send  
you. Or maybe a railroad spike. Are you standard guage or narrow guage.
RD
joe leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx> 22/10/2010 16:35 >>>

On Oct 21, 2010, at 11:28 PM, Rick Dempster wrote:
Why wouldn't they have just tapped the reed plate? (which is what i

do

for reed replacement. A lot easier than fiddling around with a nut.

Any
practical reason, apart, perhaps from reducing labour?

RD

When we talked about this Rick the conclusion was that there are only
so many turns of thread that can be cut into a 'relatively' thin reed
plate and with the nut system you had more turns. That AND the
possibility of wrecking the tap job in a reed plate IS a problem
(usually necessitating a larger mach screw), whereas stripping a nut
is quite hard to do. Reducing labor was never an issue, as it is
actually more labor intensive (and expensive...due to the nuts) to do
the 'stud pin-receiver nut' system. We were looking for the BEST
system.
smo-joe
Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> 22/10/2010 13:51 >>>

Farrell had Hohner Toots Hard Boppers with 00-90 screw posts

instaljed

in the reedplates where the rivets had been. This allowed the user

to

replace a reed by unscrewing a nut, popping the replacement reed on

the
screw post (though the holes in the reed pad needed to be enlarged
a bit
with a rat tail file), and tightening the nut again. You had to do
a bit
of centering of the reed, and gapping and fine tuning are pretty

much

always required, but the actual reed replacement was pretty quick.
Winslow
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
Harmonica instructor, The Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance
Resident expert, bluesharmonica.com
Columnist, harmonicasessions.com
--- On Thu, 10/21/10, gnarlyheman@xxxxxxxxx <gnarlyheman@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
From: gnarlyheman@xxxxxxxxx <gnarlyheman@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Replaceable Reeds
To: "Joe Leone" <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>, pneupco2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: "Harp-l" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thursday, October 21, 2010, 5:03 PM
Did Farrell have harmonicas with replaceable reeds?
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