Re: [Harp-L] Re: Soaking harps, Ultrasuede

[Tom Baehr <tombaehr@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I put a strip of ultrasuede on pver one reed on one of my chromatics.  
To hold it down, I glued the top of a bivalve (oops, two-layered  
windsaver) on top. It works.

One thing I want to try is to glue a thin piece of plastic material  
on an ultrasuede valve covering all or most of its length. Just  
springy enough to get out of the way, just stiff enough to hold it in  
place without flopping.

One thing you might try, Vern is something I read somewhere else. On  
the free end of the valve, put a little piece of micropore as a  
weight to keep it from lifting off when it's supposed to be down.  
Worth a try?

Tom
On Jul 19, 2007, at 3:00 PM, Vern Smith wrote:

> I have encountered a very strange valve problem in Hands-Free- 
> Chromatics (HFC)  Because  it has no slide and the valve prevents  
> air from passing the opening reed, the HFC is virtually leak free.   
> The sound pressure seems to overcome the static pressure and pop  
> open and vibrate the normally closed valve.  It makes a nasty  
> snarling sound. It only seems to occur in the range of A4 to E5  
> where the resonance seems very strong.  Although it occurs with  
> standard Hohner valves, it occurs more often with teflon.  However,  
> replacement with the softer, sort-of-porous Ultrasuede Light cures  
> the problem as well as any sticking/popping from condensation..   
> This ties in with my unverified theory that the leakage of "DC"  
> breath is not what bothers the player, but the leakage of  "AC"  
> sound dampens  the resonance of his embouchure.   I'd welcome  
> comments on this.