Re: [Harp-L] Slot Embossing

joe leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:28:22 -0500

This whole thing is hilarious. Embossing is an old old old idea. I  
first came across it on Italian accordions. Accordions are easy to  
work on. You can make an entire reed plate yourself. They are usually  
aluminum and only have 2 reeds on each one. One on top, one on the  
bottom. The reeds are usually steel. They are usually (but not  
always) wide at the rivet end. Narrower at the tip. Some are double  
riveted. This keeps them centered in their slot. You can make a plate  
by drilling overlapping holed in the aluminum plate and then cleaning  
out the 'points' with a file.
First you drill a hole, then you fill the hole with a soft plug  
(copper wire), then you center the drill on the SEAM of the first  
hole and drill again. You continue this until you have the slot  
roughed out. Then you can make the reeds out of the spring that's  
inside an automatic metal spool rule. You can make one of these  
plates in about 2 1/2 hours. You're only doing TWO reeds. If you mess  
up, you start again. Doing this with a harmonica? Almost  
impossible...by hand. Reason, as you work the slots, it gets  
exponentially more difficult. And not by a factor of 1 neither. More  
like a square root. Add to this the MULTITUDE of reeds, and you're in  
trouble. Conclusion, we are lucky, very very lucky that we have  
harmonica companies doing this FOR us.
Then, if you want to emboss an accordion for a customer who isn't  
happy with their reeds 'carry', you use a ball bearing from a pin  
ball machine set on a handle. Not too small in dia. You don't want to  
'furrow'. You want to 'swage' the metal.
Consider the Harrison (for example) . Not wishing to pick them out,  
but this is an entirely NEW operation here. NO hundreds and hundreds  
of years and hundreds and hundreds of (so called) experts engineering  
these things. Tell ya what. They're a better man than I am Gunga Din. :)
smo-joe
On Jan 29, 2010, at 6:00 PM, Buddha wrote:
I've been using my teeth with great results.
On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 4:01 PM, joe leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jan 29, 2010, at 11:50 AM, Buddha wrote:
Steve Baker wrote:
"To the best of my knowledge, the pioneers of reed slot embossing  
are

Joe Filisko and Rick Epping."
I learned it from Dick Gardner who at the time was using the ball  
end

of a tuning fork. He called it his magic wand. To my knowledge Dick

was doing it before Filisko. I don't know about Epping. It's  
possible

Dick learned it from Rick.

Or he could have learned it from Murad. I used a 1" (25.4mm) ball  
bearing on

the end of a basin drain popit rod. (Very tough to drill) lol

smo-joe