Re: [Harp-L] Death rattle from a chromatic?

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

A rinse in warm (not hot) water with a small amount of dish soap and a thorough rinse could help.

Before doing that, you might remove the slide and pop the reedblock out of the shell. Check the outside valves and see if any of them are curled up, sticking to the reedplate, or have their upper and lower layers sticking together. Those are the ones that could use some individual cleaning, by sliding moist, sturdy paper (like form a brown paper bag) under each layer and then pulling it out while exerting mild finger pressure from above.

You won't even need tape.

Winslow

 
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________________________________
 From: martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Friday, April 6, 2012 3:31 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Death rattle from a chromatic?
 
My CX-12 gets used very little. I take it out about once a month, but even more seldom these days since it´s gotten this ... asthmatic sound. "Death rattle" may actually be overstating it a bit -- and in contrast to that sound it goes away after some minutes of playing -- but something´s not right here.
  Of course I know it´s the valves but what I´m wondering is, is there any way to fix this without disassembling the instrument? 
  A healthy dose of warm water?
  I´m not keen on experimenting: I´d rather have this asthmatic harmonica than no chromatic at all; also I´m extremely reluctant to do anything more advanced with it, for the same reason. (Sadly, "advanced" is in my book just about anything that you can´t fix with gaffa tape.)
  Am I lost?
 
Thus wonders,
Martin
in Sweden