Re: [Harp-L] Jason Ricci's Mongoose Free Harp Cleaning Method

joe leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 8 Jan 2010 23:50:22 -0500

On Jan 8, 2010, at 10:50 PM, sam Blancato wrote:
People aren't going to like this post.

I love it.

It's kind of funny reading everybody's approach to cleaning their
harmonicas.

Some go off the deep end, wot?
  After fooling around with them for so long now I'm finding two

things to be true.  First, brass is pretty durable material and it  
will

stand up to most cleaners you have around the house with maybe the  
exception

of bleach and ammonia;

Brass drain pipes are much thinner and are less noble than harp  
brass. It will hold up to ammonia. Bleach in SHORT doses.
and I think denture cleaner is pretty mild stuff too.

It is, that's why I use it. Since I wear dentures, it's handy. Plus  
it has a whitener (cuts grease) and a nice minty after taste.
And getting it rinsed off really well is probably more important than
anything.

Right. A flash dose of even Muriatic acid is fine as long as it's  
only a couple seconds and is rinsed FAST and well. Even a harsh  
chemical is only going to leach an infinitessimally few electron ions  
from the metal's surface, that the most that could happen worst case  
scenario is that the reeds sharpen from 442 to 442.1. And since I  
have always held that NO harmonica has ever been in perfect tune,  
what's the big deal?  lolol
  Secondly, as Jason's video demonstrates it's really easy, when

you're really into harmonicas, to turn anything to do with caring  
for our

harps into a fetish of sorts.  If you just stop and think about it  
a minute

you can see that any mild soap and maybe just a little brushing  
with a soft

brush will do the job; and it only needs to be done every 6 or 7  
months.

I am not allowed to wash dishes ere but sometimes I get a clean sink  
full of scalding hot water with some of that stuff that prevents  
spotting and I swish the wood combed diatonics back and forth 3 times  
a second for 6 seconds (18 swishes). Then I slam them holes down into  
my left palm holding a tea towel. Generally the crud comes out in the  
water but the slamming takes care of the rest. Now with spl-20s, I  
swish for closer to 20 seconds. AND 6 of my 19 diatonics are smo-joe  
tuned so I have a valve in them. They still dry out well.
I do this every 5 months or so, and now that I'm senile, more like 7  
1/2 months. lol
Sonic cleaners, denture tablets, searching out cleaners with  
unusual names

like Kaboom, it all starts to get a little silly.

Any grease cutter will do. Yes, I DID say grease cutter. When  
cleaning these things, there always seems to be a bit of a film in  
there that will smear if you try and use hydrogen peroxide or alcohol  
that has too low a proof. I suggest the high test alcohol for that  
reason. As for the tablets. They are here on the shelf in the laundry  
room above my store bought teeth  :)

Sorry if I sound kind of snotty; I just think it's a bit much,  
especially

Jason's cleaning ritual - I don't care how good a harp player he is.

There's not correct protocol here; just clean the gunk off.  Most  
of the

time this can be done by running warm water over the harp without even

taking it apart and this goes for wood combed harps too if you  
shake out the

water right away.  I do it all the time and haven't had one swell  
out of

shape yet.

Chromos are a different story of course, and I hardly ever do  
anything other than dip them 'holes down' in a pool of water exactly  
as deep as the mouthpiece, fiddle the slide a couple dozen times and  
the SLAM them holes still down into the tea towel. I might do that  
every 2 weeks on one I'm using a lot. I have never had a totally leak  
free slide and I like to use micro bead of caulking on the mouthpiece  
seam. But be careful.
smo-joe

Of course I only clean harps on the third day after the Feast of  
Beltane -

that's why it never gets jinxed.
Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l