[Harp-L] Re: cleaning harps

[RUSSEGR9@xxxxxx]

I teach a bunch of kids to play harp and give them a harp of their own and 
one i keep for them in my office (which is numbered and only they play) this way 
they cant forget their harps.

Anyway when i have been short of class harps I have taken some of them and 
boiled them for about 5 minutes so i could reuse them.

There was no problem with anything.  The reeds and the plastic held up fine.

Once i forget they were on the stove and boiled them for about a half an hour 
or more.  Aside from the black plastic being discolored sort of white 
streaking and the plastic being a little deformed the harps played fine.
Russ

In a message dated 12/18/2004 3:36:56 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx writes: 
> >Someone said that they boiled a harp to steririze it. To that person I
> >would say that it would have been easier to throw it in the trash because
> >the heat has taken the temper out of the brass reeds.
> 
> Hold off on discarding that boiled harp!  There may be other good reasons
> not to boil a harp, but removing the "temper" of the reeds is not one of
> them.  Wooden combs might swell, warp and crack.  The adhesive holding
> valves (if any) to the plate might let go.  Valves (if any) might curl.