[Harp-L] B-Radical -- why is it great?

[Tom Halchak <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Vern:  Excellent assessment.  Like many, I watched the birth, struggle for
life and ultimate death of Harrison Harmonicas with great interest.
Indeed, it was a textbook example of "How Not to Start a Business".  I
don't know whether or not it was a "Con Job".  That would imply a willful
intent to defraud.  All the other information you present indicates
incompetence.  Perhaps desperation led to something other than that as the
situation digressed.  That said, I would not know Brad Harrison if he was
standing in front of me so I can't speak for what his intentions were.
Additionally, at least some of your opinions are based upon your
observations of the photos and details on his website and you are certainly
well known for having an eye for detail. So perhaps your instincts were
right.

As for the playability of the B-Radicals, I have played a couple.  I have
repaired the same one twice so in spite of the longitudinally milled reeds,
they can and will fail.  Harrison's goal was to make "Out of the Box" harps
that were as good as custom harmonicas. That was a bit of a stretch.  I
have personally spoken with a few prominent customizers who were setting up
the reed plates for Harrison.  OOTB implies that the harps would play great
because of superior design, closer tolerances and better execution.   In
reality, B-Radicals were/are good playing harps because the reed plates
were being customized by some very competent reedsmiths.  A more accurate
description would have been "Ready-Made Custom Harps" that could have been
shipped immediately as opposed to custom harps that are built to order and
could take some months to be delivered.  That is, assuming that they would
have followed Vern's advice as detailed below.

Vern is absolutely correct that the manufacture of reed plates is pretty
much "The holy Grail".  I've been making custom combs for over five years.
That is relative child's play compared to making reed plates.  Cover plates
are next.  I don't see them as being that big of a challenge.  Reed plates
too, in and of themselves, are not complex.  However, the machinery needed
to manufacture them is expensive and is a barrier to to entry for most.  As
one who is inexorably moving in that direction and building my business one
piece at a time I hope that Vern's formula for success is right on because
it is pretty much what I am doing.

*âTom Halchak*
*Blue Moon Harmonicas LLC*
*P.O. Box 14401 Clearwater, FL 33766*
*www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com <http://www.bluemoonharmonicas.com/>*
*(727) 366-2608*


Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2016 15:01:42 -0800
From: Vern <jevern@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] B-Radical -- why is it great?
To: Ken H in Ohio <airmojoken@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Harp-L Harp L <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>, philharpn@xxxxxxx
Message-ID: <C885495A-E080-4464-9516-4B9C843F3313@xxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

When I saw the first B-Radical prototype at SPAH  and visited the website,
I predicted that the the enterprise would fail.  The prototype had Hohner
reeds and the website was BS.  It was filled with unsupported claims. Of
the pictures purported to show metal grain structure, one was of a properly
prepared sample taken at high magnification.  The other two were shot at
much lower magnification and showed tool marks on a machined reed.  The
captions made no sense. The whole pitch was obscured by references to
arcane, secret, proprietary designs, materials and processes.  To me, it
smelled of con job.

Reeds are difficult to make.  You cannot take a reed blueprint to a machine
shop and order a batch.  Because of small size, flexibility, and close
tolerances,  the design of the reed and the machines to make it are
interdependent. I have built two less-than-practical reed-making machines.
In order to have the tool-marks go along the long dimension, the axis of
the cutter must be at right angles requiring a very small diameter and
consequently flexible cutter.  There are many problems with this
arrangement whose descriptions exceed the scope of this discussion.

>From the outside, it seems that Harrison never solved the problems of
mass-production reed-making. This why he was reported to have spent so much
time in his secret laboratory.  This was presented as dedication but I
think that it was desperation.

About the 32-page patent.  I am not a patent attorney but was patent
coordinator for my employer for about 5 years.  My understanding is that
the fewer the claims, the better the patent.  I think that the claims could
be easily avoided by minor design changes or invalidated by finding prior
art in the public domain.

His failure stemmed from getting his start-up sequence reversed.  He should
have:
 1. Quietly developed and tested a reed-making process in his garage,
involving as few people and as little cost as possible.
 2. Developed a commercial source for punched reed-plates
 3. Developed a commercial source for combs
 4. Designed his curvy quick-removal covers
 5. Developed a commercial source for covers.
 6. Design and implement jigs and fixtures for assembly and tuning.
 7. Build and test prototypes
 8. Conduct beta tests.
 9. Build a small inventory
 10. Set prices and Offer the B-Rad for sale.
 11. Advertise/hype.
12. Accept orders and payment.
13. Deliver promptly.

He got it backwards.  He expanded personnel and took orders and payments
too soon.  He then had to solve basic technical problems while his capital
âburn rateâ was high and he was already fending off irate customers. He
gambled that he could use customer money up front and solve problems later.
He lost. He hand-made a few very nice harmonicas.  My guess is that a B-Rad
is indistinguishable from any other high-quality diatonic in a blind
listening comparison.  You have to believe the hype or like the
quick-release covers a lot to pay the price difference.

Although on a much smaller scale, Doug Tate (Renaissance) and I
(Hands-Free-Chromatic) both launched new harmonica products.  Neither of us
tried to manufacture reeds.  We had working products to deliver before we
took orders.  Although we did not rock the harmonica world or get rich, we
donât have any bitter, angry customers. After Doug died, Seydel offered the
Renaissance for about $5k.  Chris Reynolds still sells HFCs to a niche
market.

If you could figure out how to mass-produce the reeds, you could probably
revive the B-Rad.

Vern

-- 
*â*