Re: [Harp-L] tuning stainless steel reeds



You may find it advantageous to solder a piece of brass to the end of the reed, as it's heavier than solder and can deliver more weight in less space.

I'm working on a Harmonetta at the moment. It has stainless steel reeds, and the lowest pitched reeds (C below middle C up to Eb 3 semitones higher) have brass weights.

The weight popped off the low C reed, and the reed went up in pitch 6 semitones without the weight.

The first lesson I learned in dealing with this is that you need acid flux and lead-free silver bearing solder (and therefore high temperatures) when you solder stainless steel. Time to replace my balky Radio Shack soldering station with something better (ordered an Aoyue 9378, which will arrive tomorrow).

Re-soldering the brass piece, which was the same width as the reed, proved too difficult to align so that it wouldn't hit the reed slot, so I tried tuning using only solder. It took a fairly high pile of solder that extended about three times the length of the brass piece to get the reed down to pitch. Seems to respond OK, but I'm considering finding a thinner bar of brass that would be easier to align so that I could use less solder.
 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Harmonica Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
 From: Music Cal <macaroni9999@xxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-L list <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Monday, June 3, 2013 11:52 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] tuning stainless steel reeds
 

Are there any special considerations to be made when tuning stainless steel
reeds
(as opposed to brass reeds) down three half steps at the bottom end of a
harp?

MusiCal


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