[Harp-L] Re: Embossing

["Jonathan Metts" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"As an aside to the above stuff I have to say that embossing the Herrings is
a real bitch. The brass in those plates seems a lot harder than the brass in
the Honer plates."

Hardness shouldn't have anything to do with it, as long as the reed plate is 
harder than your embossing tool, which should be the case anyway.  Any 
difficulty in embossing should come either from the shape of the reed slots 
(making it hard to fit in your embossing tool) or the texture/roughness of 
the reed plate (it might be too smooth to rub off metal from your embossing 
tool or to hold that metal after you emboss).

Then again, I'm not really sure that I do my own embossing correctly, so 
there's a good chance that I'm wrong on the above points.  I hope others 
will chime in, because I'd like to learn more about proper embossing 
techniques and what materials to use.  The work I have done has made a big 
difference in the airtightness of my harps.

Jonathan Metts