Re: [Harp-L] Treating Reeds for Stress

[Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 24, 2008, at 3:03 PM, cscharp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> The act of cutting, grinding, bending, filing, etc moves the  
> molecules of metal, and makes them helter skelter.  This is my  
> understanding.  The freezing, and now, heating, apparantly, aligns  
> the molecules and relaxes them.  I am not a metalurgist either.

Cutting, grinding, punching and filing won't have any affect. You're  
just scratching through the metal and ripping away large chunks.  
Bending, rolling (hot OR cold), forging will. You are SQUEEZING the  
molecules.
> I know that the same thing happens to glass also.  Glass builds and  
> holds stressses from usage, clinking, sound, etc, and then one day  
> it has had enough and it just explodes apart at the slightest  
> touch.  Have you ever seen this?

Yes, Back in the old days 'sneeze guards' at delicatessens, dairy  
stores, ice cream shops, salad bars, used to be tempered glass.  
Usually a flat piece on top and a face piece vertically. They have  
gone to plexiglass instead. Even though it clouds & yellows over time  
and has to periodically replaced. Once, as a teenager working in a  
delicatessen, The glass over the hot lunch steam table exploded in my  
face. Luckily my eyes weren't hurt but hundreds of dollars worth of  
food had to be discarded.
> I wonder if anyone has attempted to make a glass comb?

Molding glass isn't difficult but it does shrink a bit. The best  
procedure would be to mold the comb (slightly oversized), and then  
grind the top and bottom surfaces to accept the plates. Machining  
glass is just plain dumb.
> I do know that if you take a steel ball and drop it on a steel  
> plate it will bounce higher than any other combination, not that  
> that has to do with anyting related to harps.

I think it sorta does. Metals are funny. How they act/alloy/amalgum/ 
mill/cast etc. has a lot to do with the number of electrons in the  
outer orbits of the atom. It goes like this. There is a neucleus of  
protons and neutrons. Then there are 2 electrons in the first orbit,  
4 in the second, 8 in the third...and so on. Now if a metal has only  
1 to 7 electrons in the outer orbit, there is ROOM for another metal  
(or other element such as carbon, silica) to ALLOY or join with the  
first metal.

For metals that have 'spongy' outer orbits, we find them to be  
active, or in other words NOT Noble. If the orbits are 'tight', they  
don't mix as well with other elements AND the compounds they make are  
more Noble. BTW, noble is an expression used to define elements that  
are relatively inert as compared to other elements. BTW, steel is a  
tight metal. The tighter the metal, the harder it is to align the  
molecules, Luckily steel is magnetic and this helps.

David Payne (the Duke of Elk River) claims that he gets an electrical  
charge around certain combinations of metals in harps. This is true.  
The electrons will flow from the less noble metal to the more noble.  
I.E. from an aluminum reedplate TO the brass reeds, or TO the chromed  
or nickle plated covers, OR even the screws, which are mostly brass  
plated mild steel. Why? Saliva contains just enough acid or alkalai  
to create a crude battery.

You can defeat this by using gaskets made from blotter paper,15 lb  
roofing felt, or even plastic sheeting. BTW. roofing felt may hold  
onto a taste for quite a long time. It never bothered ME.

I had once considered treating reeds with something known as  
'Caseknit'. It is used for case hardening. I never got around to it.

I once found a backpack with no identification and it contained 3  
Marine Bands. This was while the flower children were returning home  
from Woodstock and coming across the Pa. Turnpike. Afraid that they  
might be blighted, I took the harps apart, placed the metal parts in  
a frying pan of salt water. boiled He!! out of them. Rinsed them. The  
comb was scraped, sanded and de-gunked, sent to the microwave, and  
then the whole schmere was re assembled. They played BEAUTIFULLY. I  
had them from 69 to 01, when I finally gave them away.

smo-joe
> I also do not know why my font changed to italics on its own.
>
> Mysterious world.
>
> Harvey berman
>
>
> Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:22:24 -0400
> From: "Cliff Hall" <12barz@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Harp-L] Treating reeds for stress
> To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <aba260590809241022y2157bfdi825081c0b0c7c9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> My metallurgical education is zilch.  Could somebody explain for  
> any of us
> who might be similarly impaired what the "stress" in the reeds  
> actually
> consists of?  Is it some kind of difference in molecular  
> arrangement?  What
> kind?  Is it measurable?  So far, it seems to be relieved by baking  
> but
> also by freezing.  I wonder if playing Mozart to the reeds might  
> help?  Or
> maybe some "smooth jazz".
>
> Cliff
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