[Harp-L] Burnishing v Embossing

[Dennis Fischette]

I would call it squeezing the crap out of it !!

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 20, 2017, at 7:31 PM, John Goodwin <australia.goodwin at xxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Swaging isn't the correct term. Swaging infers stamping or punching along
> with dies and less subtle hammers and presses. It is generally an extreme
> form of material manipulation.
> Burnishing is correct. You burnish the edge of a wood scaper to raise a
> cutting edge. The extruded cutting edge is merely the useful result of the
> burnishing the same as what's done when you burnish the edge of a reed
> slot. Burnishing is much much more finessed than swaging.
> Though like so much of our bastardised English language, I can't see the
> term embossing being changed anytime soon.
> I did my time as a toolmaker working on press tools, dies and punches.
> 
>> On 20 January 2017 at 22:31, 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
>> 
>>