RE: [Harp-L] Re: tooth-picks and all that

["Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't get it. Wood 'doesn't have a memory' as your industrial design people would say; in other words, when the nail comes out, the hole stays open, the wood grain not returning to it's former pre-nailed shape. So you have to put a tooth-pick in there, which will fall out and need to be replaced every time you take it apart; and it will never grip like new wood. Why not replace with either nut and bolt, or set-screw and threaded plate. That's what I do; no nails, no toothpicks, just a little fold up set of pocket screwdrivers and I can pull the harp apart and re-assemble it as many times as I need.
Another mod. I have started to use is soldering the cover-plate nuts on to the cover-plate, so I can open the harp without risking the loss of the nuts. Also, when I remove the bolts, specially if at a gig or whatever, I screw the bolts just a few turns into the soldered-on nuts. Pretty hard to lose the whole cover, though I'm sure I'll manage that too one of these days.
RD

>>> Steve Shaw <moorcot@xxxxxxx> 27/02/2008 11:20 >>>


> Nice post, Rick, but you forgot the most crucial piece of advice of all, which I'm happy to provide now. Simply this. Under no circumstances must you ever try to work on Hohner nailed harps over a shag-pile carpet. Never, ever. Trust me, I've been there.
>
> Steve

> AND
> Always, always save all nails. Doesn't matter what the nail looks like save it. If you find some nails, snatch them up any way you can. He who dies with the most nails wins. You can never have too many nails, but you sure can have too few.
>
> Dave


Whilst not wishing to prolong the whimsy, if indeed whimsy it be, which I doubt severely, I should like to add that the average nailed-harp Hohner owner has this awful, subliminal, inchoate half-wish that, one day fairly soon, his or her ageing harp will finally bite the dust big-time, just simply so that the nails may be harvested for future Hohner harp rescue missions.   Hohner nailed harps don't so much have built-in obsolescence as a built-in death wish. 

Steve 

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