Fwd: [Harp-L] Making cheap harps good

["Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think there is a limit. Garbage in, garbage out.

I remember buying some inexpensive harps once for experimental
purposes for a seminar I was giving. They were held together with a
huge number of screws and once dissassembled, were impossible to
reassemble - evidently either the combs were severerly warped or the
reedplate screw holes were incorectly located and it was only brute
force that held the harps together. The effort it would have taken to
correct this problem would not have been worth the effort.

Another illustration. I remember being at a harmonica festival and an
elderly player, evidently believing he was doing a doing a good deed
for the cause by donating usalbe reeds and  parts, gave a large box of
worn-out cheap harmonicas - I won't mention brand as the brand is well
known. The customizer politely thanked the giver, then, after the
latter had departed, quickly and unceremoniously deposited the entire
collection in the nearest trash can. I'm sure he would not have done
so had he felt the donated parts were of any use.

Winslow

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Paul Bowering
<paul_bowering@...> wrote:

Were a customizer to work on a cheap harp would the
end product be as good as anything else. In other
words, is there something inherently 'cheap' in lower 
end harps? 

This could pertain to any brand but I'm specifically
thinking in terms of the Hohner MS series versus the
handmades. I work on all my harps so I'm wondering if
problems with the cheapies can be overcome.

Things that come to mind are:

1) Tolerances - just a more agressive embossing?
2) Screws - more screws generally seems to make a more

   airtight harp but there isn't always a 
   correspondence.
3) Tuning - is haphazard tuning the reason why Big 
   River harps are significantly less expensive?

Is that it or is there something about the raw
materials that would make them less desireable?

Paul

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@...
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l

--- End forwarded message ---