Re: [Harp-L] Replacement reed plates vs replacing reeds

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I never swap reedplates, I always replace single reeds, but getting a reedplate is never a bad idea, even though single reeds are available to me, I'm usually pulling reeds from reedplates as replacements. On a reedplate, you don't have the trouble of figuring out what reed is which, you want a five draw, you go to the fifth one over on the drawplate, etc. I store mine in a wax-paper sleeve, so a reed doesn't catch on something by accident. Once you've eliminated the chance of snagging, the reedplate protects the reeds well in storage. It's already organized so the reeds are easy to find, especially if you scratch the key somewhere on the corner of the plate.
Reedplates aren't that expensive and you've got a complete set of replacement reeds when you get one. Once you've taken a reed off, you store the plate. When the next reed goes out, you've got that replacement reed already. 




Here's why companies sell reedplates instead of single reeds:
You'd have to organize these things, let's say we're working with a Seydel Session. Here's a theoretical single-reed situation... you'd have it organized by harp and hole. Somebody needs a 5 blow on an A Session, you go to the set of A Session bins, there will be 20 bins there and you go to the 5 blow bin and pull out a reed. 
So, for the standard Session, you would have 12 keys, G-F#, each with 20 bins. For the standard session, you now have 240 bins from which you'd pluck individual reeds. But wait.... there are the three high Sessions, High G, High Ab and High A. Now we have 300 bins from which to pull, but we've also got the lows and superlows, adding another 14 keys, so now we're at 580 little bins of reeds we're stocking and pulling from.
That's 580 totally unique reeds from this one line. 
In addition to that, we'll also have some harmonicas with some reeds the same, but others different, for instance, the 12 harmonic minor keys and the 12 natural minors, 12 keys in circular pattern, 12 keys for country, 12 keys for the Paddy Richters. That's another 1,200 individual reeds. Now, we are up to 1,780 individual harmonica reeds. 
After our initial 580 reeds from double low F to High A, most of the other 780 will be identical to some reed in the first group of 580. 
What we'll have to do first is assign each specific reed its own part number. We might wind up with 600 or so in the end. We'll have to create a cross-reference database on computer, or a catalog on paper. So when you order say a five blow on a harmonic minor G Session, the worker will look up that part number in the database or catalog, find it in one of the 600 bins and get it for you. Plus somebody has to inventory those 600 bins and keep them stocked. 


But wait.... there's several reed profiles.... so we'll have to add to our bins... The Solist uses the same narrower reeds as the prewar Bandmaster... the Solist comes in 8 keys, so that's another 160 bins of totally unique reeds.


We'd also have to add the chromatics in there, which are available in 7 keys, 4 Baritone keys, 48 reeds a piece, that's an additional 518 reeds. 


Now we are up to around 1,300 of individual reeds. But there's another type of reed used in the Favorite Black, Favorite and Solist Pro. That will add another 600 bins of reeds. Plus, we'll have to have to have the same sort of crossreference thing set up like we did with the Session. 


However it would be done, it would be pretty complicated to do at the factory. 


Dave
__________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com