Re: [Harp-L] Re: Embossing

["James Sterett" <jsterett@xxxxxxxxx>]

All this talk of embossing led me to my first attempt yesterday as well.  Who was it, Tim, with the socket suggestion?  Great, I got sockets. I had some buzzing, checked the reed was straight, widened the gap a hair, and it was gone.  Jim, in regard to the difference in volume, I ran into that as well, in an effort to even it out, while drawing, I put my finger over the blow (bottom) reed.  If the volume was markedly different with my finger on the reed, I decreased the gap of the blow reed until there was no/little difference in volume of the draw note, and the blow note still came out strong.

I also attempted "scooping" the reeds.  I put a dental pick (hook) lengthwise on the reed, and pulled the reed tip up with a feeler gauge.  Seemed to work ok, but I wasn't too satisfied with my method, any tips on "scooping?"

Overall, a pretty successful maiden voyage.  Gave a S20 G harp life like it never knew.  Also made one nicely responsive D S20 out of two dead ones.  

THanks all for your information and inspiration.

Jim.
www.mcmule.com 


>>> "Jim Konish" <konisj@xxxxxxx> 11/4/2005 2:14 PM >>>
I also made my first attempt at embossing a few days ago after reading all
the recent posts on the subject.  I tried it using a penny on a Big River
that's always had terrible reed response (I had to play at full volume or
not at all), and I got most of the reeds to respond better, but after
regapping I found that now when I play chords, the volume of each individual
note in the chord is different so that some are far more prominent than
others and the chord sounded wrong.  I've tried to fix this by regapping
again, but I couldn't really get it right.  Is this a common problem, or did
I just do something horribly wrong in the embossing/regapping process?
Also, how can I fix it?

My last question is, how close to the rivet end of the slot should you go
with the embossing?  I was worried about damaging the reed by pressing on it
too close to the rivet, so I only embossed it along about 2/3 of the length
of the slot.

~Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Blake Taylor
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 11:04 AM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx; playharp@xxxxxxxxxxx; wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Subject: Re: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Embossing

O.k. -    Made my first attempt at embossing last night - used a penny
and rubbed it with some force, using the curved edge, up and down the
slot.  Didn't see a great deal of difference visually (I was trying it
on a sp20).  Obviously the reeds needed to be re-gapped. After
regapping, I gave it a blow, and noticed a buzz in some of the reeds.
I'm guessing I may have overdone it on the embossing. Any ideas /
suggestions?

 - Blake


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