Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

Couple of questions:

1. I have measured the reed slots of the Blow and Draw plates on my G Lucky 13 which I am planning to retune into an A harp (why is their no Lucky 13 in A!!!!!). As the valves get in the way, I can't measure the draw plate quite as accurately, but it is within a few tenths of a mil either way. Given that the actual reeds are identical sizes, am I right in thinking the slots on both blow and draw plates are the same length?

2. I have measured the first few slots of the C and D harps. The C seems identical to the G. But the D slots seem to be very slightly larger. Any clues as to whether they should be the same, or is my measuring just inaccurate?

So, what are my options:

3.Rereed the plate with the starting hole in the same position. I counted up the reeds of the same slot size in the G, C and D harps. There are 7 the correct size and the rest will require retuning reeds. Or... is it possible that I would find some find reeds for the T008s which will fill the gaps?

4. Alternatively, I could move the starting position up one hole which then gives 14 reeds which don't need retuning... but two notes less top end (not fussed about that!

Why am I fussing about all this? Well, because I tend to find that my rereeding is better than my tuning! I find I end up with dead sounding reeds quite often when I tune reeds up and have to replace them! I wonder if I am just filing/grinding the wrong bit of the reed? Should I be taking metal off the very tip? of just behind the tip (this is what I normally do, I try to keep away from the edges of the reed). However, I do find quite often though that I end up with a reed that doesn't seem to want to change pitch - so I keep filing... And then all of a sudden it goes miles off. Or the reed is so thin it folds in half at the tip and breaks. I am sure this shouldn't happen just to change a semitone or two!

Hints and advice would be welcome!

I'm a bit confused about your opening sentence. The standard Richter Lucky 13 (as well as several other tunings) does come in A. But AFAIK you're talking about Diminished Tuning here? In that case you will need to do a retune.

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill on this issue. If you have the right tool and develop your hand skills, tuning up a reed by two semitones only takes a few seconds to get it close, then a bit longer to get it fine tuned.

But certainly within 20 seconds each reed could be tuned up correctly. Having done this stuff for decades, I can confidently state the whole harp with its 26 reeds could be retuned from G to A in under 10 minutes.

The tool you need is a Dremel or similar hand-held rotary tool, with variable speed. For tuning reeds it should be fitted with a silicone polishing wheel. The ones I use are made by Proxxon, and are easily available on Amazon.
Practice on an old harp first. After disassembling the harp, support the reed you're tuning up with a shim of some sort (I use a leaf taken from an old feeler gauge). Using a pen grip on the Dremel, polish off material from the reed tip area: the last few millimetres.

With practice, you can get very fast at raising the pitch. The important thing is not to go too far, which is easy to do! However, if that happens, simply polish off a tiny amount at the base of the reed and the pitch will drop down again.

Two semitones up is fine for retuning a reed and won't appreciably affect the tone or response. Low reeds can be tuned up a fifth or more without a problem, but on mid and high range reeds I'd stop at three semitones up and replace reeds instead. But in this case (where all reeds are to be raised two semitones), it's much faster and more practical to do the retune.

Blow and draw reed slot lengths in the same hole are identical on all harmonicas, including the Lucky 13.

If you buy those tools and put in the practice, after a while you'll find that retuning reeds is a breeze

Yup, I am making a mountain out of a molehill for sure! And, having finally seen the tool you are using, I can see why. When you recommended these things before I thought you were using the conical shaped jobs not a honking great sanding disc. I think my sanding tools just aren't a fierce enough grit. I have also tried the ball ended tips, without much success either. I am very handy and precise with tools and so I really have not been able to work out why I am not managing to make this work better and quicker!

Let me ask a very specific question which never seems to be answered that precisely in any videos. Exactly which bit of the reed is it that you file? I attach a diagram to be sure of identifying the correct place. I am assuming it is a combination of B and D, but possibly A. Advice would be appreciated.

I have, just in case anyone finds it useful, made the slide which I used for this image available here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... sp=sharing

I use solo tuning, btw, which is why I wonder about there being no harp in A...if you were wondering!

Just the A & B areas

Right. That is useful. So that also implies try not to thin down the end at all? So just taking weight out of the mid section of the reed? Or do you take metal off right across the tip (i.e. the whole width of the blue and pink bits of the diagram). Sorry for the detailed questions but I've really struggled with this!

(And having finally managed to order some Proxxon wheels from Axminster... they are waaaaaay grittier than the ones i had! That should help a lot!)