[Harp-L] Re: SS vs. brass reeds

[Michael Easton <diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I bought 2 1847's shortly after they came out.
On average I was blowing out 1 reed every 5  gigs on the MB's or GM's  
I played a lot. C, A and D.

I figured out the cost of MB's at the time and the cost of an 1847.   
Since the 1847's ran close to  4 times as much as a MB they should last
 at least 20 gigs based on my playing technique.  To date I'm still  
playing the same 2 C and A harps I bought back in 2007.  Between jams,  
record dates and gigs I've used the same 2 harps as my main C and A  
more then 90 times.  Over that time I only had to slightly retune a  
few reeds.

Even though I can build them I no longer play any customs. 1847's  
right out of the box are great on their own. Being a busy harp tech I  
don't have time to work on my own harps and enjoy the
freedom playing Stainless Steel reeds provide.

I have friends that tend to blow them out but they play the high ends  
a lot and play overblows so there is more stress on the reeds then I  
play as a regular blues player.

I ordered a few Seydel SS Sessions for customers. The one guy is on  
this list so he can give a review once he has a chance to give it a  
test drive.

Mike


On Apr 16, 2011, at 9:03 AM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Message: 6
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:20:21 -0700
From: Vern <jevern@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Stainless steel vs. brass/other reeds
To: "<bluesbent@xxxxxxxx>" <bluesbent@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <04A18F90-B812-4F71-863F-4D1579C4BF38@xxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

A test to confirm or deny the superiority of SS reeds would involve  
playing a large number of harps until the reeds failed on a blowing  
machine.  If the manufacturer's have done that, they have not reported  
it.  Statistically it won't mean much, but none of the reeds on my  
hard-working Saxony have failed.

The properties of SS are better than those of copper alloys in that  
steel has a fatigue limit and copper alloys do not. (Fatigue limit is  
the stress below which there is negligible fatigue)

There are no certainties,  but I think that SS is a good bet.  I think  
that the average SS reed will live longer than the average copper- 
alloy reed.  That said, the  probabilities may overlap so that the  
best bronze can reed can outlast the worst SS one.

Vern