[Harp-L] New process for treating reeds

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's probably been done before, I've been working and thinking for a year on this... -and I'm mentioning it now, so hopefully others won't have to go through the same amount of work... annealing reeds, although what the process I got in the end isn't exactly annealing and I'm getting good enough results now to mention it to folks. What got me thinking of this was something carried over from guns, when you reload brass rifle cartridges, before you load, you have to heat treat the cartridge brass to relieve the stress in the metal. Everytime you shoot a shell, stress builds up in the brass, so you anneal to soften the brass and relieve the stress in the metal. If you don't, eventually the brass is going to split when you shoot the cartridge. 
Harmonica reeds are certainly under less stress than the brass in a rifle shell. So, I got to thinking, what if I applied that process to harmonicas? Harmonica reeds have inherent metal stress in them from the factory. I thought that if I could relieve that stress in the metal, the reeds would maybe last longer... and I prefer - probably since I was a Marine Band player for 25 years - narrow, brass reeds. So, I've been working for a long time on things I could do to make my own improvements to the Seydel Solist. Many, many thanks to Randy Sandoval for educating me on metals... many thanks, he really helped me eliminate a good bit of trial and error. I've experiemented with different kinds of heating, heating in different places, heating for different times, different temps, quenching, not quenching, etc. 
Anyway, I've found something that apparently works. I've got a couple of Ds now I'm working on for some guys, so I used those for the first official use of this process. 
The breakthrough was stopping short of annealing. Instead of using a high temperature, I used a lower temperature for a longer period of time. I had been getting close to this, but was still experimenting for the best temp, when Randy sent me something that said between 250 and 300 degrees would not make the brass softer (anneal), but would instead relieve the inherent stress in the metal and not change its temper. 

Today was the first time I did this for somebody's order. I was thinking longevity, which can not be tested this early, but  what I got was a very noticeable improvement in response and a slight increase in volume... the difference was like how you feel when you go in and leave a chiropractor, perhaps for similar reasons. There was a very noticeable improvement... and it wasn't psycological because I wasn't expecting ANY improvement in response. But I got it. 

Another interesting note, there was one reed that took more effort to gap than the others... a 2 blow. I gapped and embossed before heat treating and after the treatment, all the gaps were the same. Except that 2 blow. It was way high. Now the gap adjustment is smoother... just an observation. 

Here's the process, it's so simple to describe, I kind of feel like a jackass for having worked at it so long. Time will tell if I can repeat these results over time...

Take two reedplates 500 degrees in the oven for one hour, cool at room temperature. 


Dave 
_______________________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com