[Harp-L] Blue Tack tuning

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

OK;
      Following Brendan 'Blu-Tak's handy info, and having received my new low F XB, rendering my old low F Spec 20 obsolete, I decided to test Brendan's handy hint and turn my low F SP20 into a low E, which gets very little use. (But I love to use it ; my old SP20 low E has had about 5 reeds changed and the cumulative result of my shoddy workmanship means that it am retiring it to the scraphear. Anyway, the low E, in fact any E harp doesn't offer many practical applications for my money, unless you want to play first pos. in E. Second is B, third F#, fourth, C#, fifth Ab and so forth)
      So I sat down and blu-taked all reeds, dabbing on small pieces and then cutting away the excess with a razor blade until the reed was in tune.
      It worked! and stood some pretty heavy playing on a couple of tunes, that night.
      HOWEVER, somebody, can't remember if it was a personal inquiry or one on harp-l, I was asked if it would work in reverse ie applying the Blu-tak down near the rivet-end to sharpen the pitch;"Of course it would work" is what I replied.
      Well, I tried it, and it doesn't. One of my students was watching me doing this and when I could get almost no pitch change, despite a great lump of Blu-Tak down near the rivet, said "Why don't you stick it right across the reed onto the plate?" 
      I scoffed at this, of course, but having been made a fool of once, relinquished my pride and squashed the Blu-tak across the reed, so that it adhered to the plate on both sides of the channel.
     "That will just stop the reed from playing" I said, confidently.
      It didn't. The reed played, with a sharpened pitch.
      I don't know that I'd adopt this method as standard practice, and I haven't pursued any further experiments.
      However, the fact that you can easily flatten the pitch by adding Blu-tak to the reed tip, but not do the reverse at the rivet end, is I suspect for the same reason that if you stand at the free end of a diving board,you will have far more effect on the bending of the board than you would if you stood more closely to the fixed end.
      Hope this info is useful, or at least thought-provoking.
RD