Re: [Harp-L] B-Radical -- why is it great?

[Vern <jevern@xxxxxxx>]

When I saw the first B-Radical prototype at SPAH  and visited the website, I predicted that the the enterprise would fail.  The prototype had Hohner reeds and the website was BS.  It was filled with unsupported claims. Of the pictures purported to show metal grain structure, one was of a properly prepared sample taken at high magnification.  The other two were shot at much lower magnification and showed tool marks on a machined reed.  The captions made no sense. The whole pitch was obscured by references to arcane, secret, proprietary designs, materials and processes.  To me, it smelled of con job.

Reeds are difficult to make.  You cannot take a reed blueprint to a machine shop and order a batch.  Because of small size, flexibility, and close tolerances,  the design of the reed and the machines to make it are interdependent. I have built two less-than-practical reed-making machines. In order to have the tool-marks go along the long dimension, the axis of the cutter must be at right angles requiring a very small diameter and consequently flexible cutter.  There are many problems with this arrangement whose descriptions exceed the scope of this discussion.

>From the outside, it seems that Harrison never solved the problems of mass-production reed-making. This why he was reported to have spent so much time in his secret laboratory.  This was presented as dedication but I think that it was desperation.  

About the 32-page patent.  I am not a patent attorney but was patent coordinator for my employer for about 5 years.  My understanding is that the fewer the claims, the better the patent.  I think that the claims could be easily avoided by minor design changes or invalidated by finding prior art in the public domain.

His failure stemmed from getting his start-up sequence reversed.  He should have:
 1. Quietly developed and tested a reed-making process in his garage, involving as few people and as little cost as possible.
 2. Developed a commercial source for punched reed-plates
 3. Developed a commercial source for combs
 4. Designed his curvy quick-removal covers
 5. Developed a commercial source for covers.
 6. Design and implement jigs and fixtures for assembly and tuning.
 7. Build and test prototypes
 8. Conduct beta tests.
 9. Build a small inventory
 10. Set prices and Offer the B-Rad for sale.
 11. Advertise/hype.
12. Accept orders and payment.
13. Deliver promptly.

He got it backwards.  He expanded personnel and took orders and payments too soon.  He then had to solve basic technical problems while his capital âburn rateâ was high and he was already fending off irate customers. He gambled that he could use customer money up front and solve problems later. He lost. He hand-made a few very nice harmonicas.  My guess is that a B-Rad is indistinguishable from any other high-quality diatonic in a blind listening comparison.  You have to believe the hype or like the quick-release covers a lot to pay the price difference.  

Although on a much smaller scale, Doug Tate (Renaissance) and I (Hands-Free-Chromatic) both launched new harmonica products.  Neither of us tried to manufacture reeds.  We had working products to deliver before we took orders.  Although we did not rock the harmonica world or get rich, we donât have any bitter, angry customers. After Doug died, Seydel offered the Renaissance for about $5k.  Chris Reynolds still sells HFCs to a niche market.

If you could figure out how to mass-produce the reeds, you could probably revive the B-Rad.
 
Vern

 

> On Mar 5, 2016, at 1:31 PM, Ken H in Ohio <airmojoken@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> One of the most unique features of the B-Radical was that the metal
> for the reeds were milled "vertically", so the milling marks ran the
> length of the reed and not horizontally, or across the width of the
> reed... the vertically milled reeds were suppose to last longer than
> regular reeds with horizontal milling marks.
> 
> Ken H in OH
> 
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2016 at 2:35 PM,  <philharpn@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I looked up what I thought was Brad Harrison's patent for the B-Radical-- 7,847,172 issued Dec. 7, 2010 -- but I am not sure this is the right patent.
>> 
>> 1. if not, what is the correct patent no.?
>> 
>> 2. The patent has 32 pages -- and I'm still in the process of trying to cypher it out -- but what does the B-Radical harp do that makes it better than any other harp?
>> 
>> 3. It has a truckful of claims but they seem to deal with how the cover plates are attached for quick assembly.
>> 
>> 4. The drawings that accompany the patent appear to look like the B-Radical.
>> 
>> ---------
>> 
>> Being a fan of harmonica patents, anyone who ever searched through the patent office archive has seen hundreds of interesting harmonica designs that either were never produced or died an early death for lack of sales.
>> 
>> Hanlon's razor probably explains the company's failure  best.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>