[Harp-L] Burnishing v Embossing

[Joseph Leone]

Yeah Aongus..I always think swaging. You’re more or less extruding or ’smearing’  metal from one area to another. 
smo-joe (the 4M company. Mars machining metallurgy manufacturing )

> On Jan 20, 2017, at 6:31 AM, Aongus Mac Cana <amaccana at xxxxx> wrote:
> 
> At the risk of being pedantic, I suggest that neither Burnishing nor
> Embossing is the correct term for spreading reed plates to reduce the gap to
> the reeds.
> 
> When I went to engineering school this engineering operation was called
> Swaging and was employed by Blacksmiths, Boilermakers and Sheetmetalworkers.
> Car body repairmen might have had occasion to use the technique as well from
> time to time, but I never anticipated that there would be occasion to apply
> it to the delicate field of harmonica maintenance. Maybe I should have spent
> a few weeks in a Jewelery workshop after two years in the cruder environment
> of a railway maintenance works.
> 
> As far as tools for this operation on a reed plate are concerned I have
> heard recommendations for coins, the ball end of a tuning fork, and small
> automobile socket spanners. I have not got around to trying any of them yet.
> 
> At the Willie Clancy Summer Music School the specialty tools of Richard
> Sleigh have been suggested as the weapons of choice for those who wish to
> seriously attack their harmonicas with extreme prejudice.
> 
> Beannachtai
> 
> Aongus Mac Cana
>