[Harp-L] Re: Replaceable reeds - Harmonic Reed All American Design

["jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx" <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ronnie Schreiber writes:


"Considering that the patents are expired, with companies now offering alternate, and in the case of at least Seydel, custom tunings, I'm surprised that nobody has ever considered putting the Harmonic Reed Co All-American harmonica design back into production. "

I'm disappointed that no-one has ever remade these, but not at all surprised.  I am sure that the ergonomic differences between the AAB design and the standard Designs (particularly the basic Richter) were a major factor in the failure of the original harps.  For instance, while I don't have one to measure on hand, I would not be surprised if the hole spacing was wider than on a chromatic harmonica.  As some people have trouble with the slightly wider Seydel hole spacing, I can imagine this was a major problem.


"It's quite an ingenious design, rather elegant."

Agreed entirely.

"Back then I'm sure there wasn't a market for alternate tunings,"

I'm not convinced that there is a particularly large market for such today.  I'd be interested in the percentage of alternate tuned harmonicas sold by each company per year.  I think Lee Oskar numbers from the past have been posted on harp-l, and they were not large.  

"but their system of individual miniature reed plates for each reed that can be easily removed and replaced seems ideal for coming up with all sorts of alternate tunings without having to resort to dealing with rivets or tiny screws and nuts. Also, obviously, it would make replacing reeds that blow out much easier."


Actually, they did make several differently tuned versions of this design.  Chromatic, bass, octave.  I think the chromatic is the most common of these.


"Has anyone on the list played one of these? "

I have several of them, including one of the "bass" all blow octave ones.  (Not home, so don't remember exactly right now)


"How air tight are they? "

Pretty decent, but remember these are sixty year old instruments made out of a material which tends to crack and warp over time.  So, it's really hard to say exactly how they were originally.  I had Pat Missin set one up for me and it played fairly well.  One negative might be that the chambers are all equal sized, so this might effect reed interaction.  As this uniformity of chamber size is the defining feature of the design, it may be a significant limiter in alternate tuning flexibility.  Notably, I've never seen of a standard GMD tuned All-American-Bakelite in anything other than C.  Not that my knowledge is anywhere near exhaustive, but I was on the hunt for these for several years.



"The patent drawings that I've seen indicate that the small, vertical, reedplates slide into bakelite slots in the equivalent to a comb. Since it's just a press fit, I wonder how air tight the design is."

Most leakage seems to be from cracks around the mouthpiece screws or warpage between the mouthpiece and the comb.  The overlap between the plastic chamber and reedplates seems decently airtight, in much the same way that recessed reedplates in Lee Oskars and Special 20s are inherently very airtight (at least when comb molds are sharp).

"Of course, with modern materials, some kind of seal, perhaps out of Teflon, probably could be co-molded in place."

An interesting idea, but probably unnecessary.  ABS or most other modern plastics would probably work as well.


"I'm going to show the patent drawings to the 3D printers that I'm working with to see if they can reproduce the housing and removable mouthpiece"

An interesting idea.  Another possibility might be small scale injection molding operations.  Either way, if you make some please let the list know.


"It seems to me that using some kind of punch press or die cutting machine, conventional reedplates could probably be sliced up into individual components for each reed, assuming it can be done without distorting the plate."

The individual reedplates are very unusually shaped.  They have significantly more material on each side than between reeds on a standard reedplate.  I think you might have more success printing a reedplate out of a sufficiently hard material and riveting on purchased reeds.  Or perhaps laser cutting or milling reedplates out.  

These All-American-Bakelite and Unitone harmonicas pop up on eBay a few times a year, it would be well worth checking one out for yourself.  They usually aren't too expensive, and seeing the design  in real life (and how it may differ from the patents--though I believe they were fairly close) would probably help answer a lot of your questions better than anyone else could.

Hope this helps


JR Ross