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

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My advice on cleaning your valves with warm water would be the following:
1) Take the covers off your harmonica.
2) Get a shallow bowl of warm water.
3) Take the warm water and don't let it touch the harmonica in any way whatsoever. 

Now I hear people say to do various things with warm water all the time. Even the late, great Bill "Desert Fox" Romel (who I think didn't really like being called Desert Fox, but his name was Romel, he lived in the desert and was awesome), would tell me that he would clean valves by setting them in a very shallow pan of mild soapy water. 
I bet this worked awesomely out in Vegas, where the humidity like 5 below zero percent. When I try this in humid West by God Virginia, the results are terrible. The valves don't dry out fast enough and they wind up taking up a curl. 

Here's what you can do... (continuation of the steps mentioned above):
4) Get a bar of soap. 
5) Take a small strip of paper and dip it quickly in the warm water.
6) drag strip lightly across the soap.
7) drag the slightly soapy paper strip between the two layers of the troublesome windsaver valve. 

This will probably take care of it. Let me know if it doesn't.



David Payne

Steelify your Seydels, Soul's Voices and Welmeisters at Elk River
www.elkriverharmonicas.com 


________________________________
 From: martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Friday, April 6, 2012 6:31 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