Re: [Harp-L] A surprising Hohner Silver Star

[joe leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 27, 2010, at 8:16 AM, martin oldsberg wrote:

> Gosh, so it´s that simple!

Lol, well I DID make it over simplified.

>   Thank you, Joe, and I´m blushing in a becoming manner. With a few  
> minutes of concentrated brain work I ought to have been able to  
> come up with this hypothesis myself -- but why exert oneself?

Oh Pshaaaaw, things have a way of coming to us on their own. You  
would have seen it eventually. When I see a reed, I see a miniature  
diving board. If one were to make the board longer or shorter, that  
has an effect. Thicker or thinner also has an effect. Width has less  
but it's there. Light or heavy divers also have an effect. The old  
wood boards were much better. The ash gave a springiness that the  
aluminum just doesn't have. BUT they're only good for 4 1/2 to 5  
years. Everything good has a tradeoff.

Imagine taking a power saw and cutting a kerf 1/16" deep (1.5mm)  
UNDER the board. Then imagine the same kerf on TOP of the board.  
Different failure rates? Sure. Would the ruler I spoke of have holes  
or slots in it, that's also a factor. Material/alloy? Also a factor.  
It seems that ANY modification is a factor.

Any slashes across a reed are factors. I used to buff out all the  
scratches. It turned out to be an unnecessary amount of work for  
questionable returns. PLUS, when you do this, you have the effect of  
making the reeds more like a cheaper harp. In a word..thinner. You  
wind up with a more responsive harp by way of thinning the reeds,  
BUT, you also loose integrity. If the alloy isn't above suspicion and  
has any defects in it, the reed will fail sooner than it ordinarily  
would have. The manufacturers have already worked this out and what  
we have now is a series of tradeoffs.
> So Eb is the breaking point?

Actually, from my limited experience, I find that I have the best  
luck with diatonics in the key of Bb and above, up to about E. They  
seem to be in my bending range. Lower keys are hard for me to bend  
and have some 'jet' lag, whereas the higher harps seem stiff.  
Probably due to the reeds being so short (therefore 'comparitively'  
strong. Long thin objects have different oscillations than short ones.

> Interestingly, I have a Huang Bac-Pac harp in D that almost has  
> held up as well as that little bugger in E ... -- but I understand  
> the general principle.

Where it shows is in organs. I worked on a Wurlitzer ( and some  
accordions) where every reed was a different width. But since they  
were all in their own individual reed blocks, this was possible from  
an expense standpoint. This isn't a good idea with harmonicas because  
as you shrink the sizes of the reeds, they aren't capable of taking  
as much stress. Organs and accordions have pressure reliefs built in  
as a stop gap. A harp doesn't and a player could quickly blow out a  
reed that was too tiny.

smo-joe
> thanks again,
> says,
> Martin,
> who´s in a hurry downtown to buy a couple of more Silver Stars in  
> high keys, since there´s a bit of a sale! on them.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> From: joe leone <>
>
> On Aug 26, 2010, at 5:34 PM, martin oldsberg wrote:
>
> > The Silver Star is not one of Hohner´s top of the line products,
> > and that is reflected in it´s price, but I´ve been surprised by one
> > thing:
> >   Normally if I buy a C or A harp they´re pretty much goners after
> > a few days, but there is one Silver Star in E that just keeps
> > hanging on -- and we´re talking years of hard labour here.
> >   What could be the reason for this?
>
> Eb and higher =....shorter stronger (comparitively) reeds
>
> >   One would assume that the difference, in metallurgical terms, ain
> > ´t that great between a C and an E -- or?
>
> If you take a lucite plastic ruler, hang it over the edge of a table
> and twang it while exposing more and more over the edge, after
> exposing more and more ruler, it can break. Turtle, tortoise,
> terrapin? same thing.
>
> >   I´ve abused this one to an unlikely extent and it still shows no
> > sign of giving up; hasn´t even needed a tuning. The key of A Silver
> > Star that I bought the other week is now, by way of comparison,
> > irredeemably lost, and sounded crap form the outset.
> >    Is it so that the Silver Stars started out as great harps and
> > then declined, and it was just my luck that I got this one from the
> > right early batch?
>
> The A has weighted tips on the low end. Add fishing sinker to the
> ruler tip. = quicker failure.