[Harp-L] Flat sanding reedplates/problem with self tapping screws

[Matthew Smart <matthewsmart@xxxxxxxxx>]

Good morning,

In the two part workshop at SPAH, Mike Fugazzi and myself spent a lot of 
time showing how to flat sand draw reedplates on the harmonica. The 
importance of this is that most manufacturers are using self-tapping 
stainless screws. Self tapping screws create a little volcano of metal 
around the screw holes and this causes a leak when bolted to a comb. It 
is pretty easy to get rid of this and whether you try a custom comb or 
not, you should get a performance bump from doing this. We passed around 
a golden melody set of plates at the workshop and everyone could feel 
the protruding metal with their fingers when we passed the plates 
around. This means that even with a recessed comb like sp20, you could 
still have some separation from the plates and the comb (caused by the 
excess metal) which affects performance.

Here is a two part video on replacing a comb and flat sanding the 
plates. Im sorry its a little sales pitchy. I will be making another 
shorter video for this soon.

If you are wondering if this is a problem on your harmonica, I have only 
seen suzukis actually tapping threads so Seydel, lee oskar, hohner, etc. 
may have this issue.

Why? brass is more expensive than stainless right now and it does save 
money in the factory to self-tap with screws.

Here are the videos

part one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYCybaetj7U

part two http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLZ-8h0IsXg

I hope you find this helpful!

Matthew
www.hetrickharmonica.com