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Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2002 14:04:31 +1300
From: "G."
Subject: Re: Plastic comb for 270

Hello Joel,
Well you could start with Blackie Schachner's "Complete Complete Boov sy
Chomratic & Diatonic 'State of the Art' Repairs" from F&R Farrell
http://www.frfarrell.com and Doug Tate's "How to make your harmonica play
better". I'm also trying desperately to get my hands on "Dick's Trick's" by
Dick Gardener to no avail.

Check into http://www.angelfire.com/music/HarpOn and look under "chrom
maintenance" and "Mike's retuning" for the basics of taking a chrom apart
and reassembling it, basic maintenance and retuning reeds.

Visit http://www.angelfire.com/music/harmonica for an article on reed
adjustment, probably the biggest factor in getting smooth reed response from
your instrument.

Pop into http://www.patmissin.com for everything you'd want to know about
retuning & altered tunings on the harmonica in "Altered States" TUN.TXT.

The biggest secret of good harmonica tweaking & customising is getting the
experience, months and months, preferably years of it. You will probably
destroy one or two instruments to begin with so start on something cheap -
cheap diatonics for instance.

You may want to simply try taking the 270 wood comb, sanding the faces flat
on a very flat abrasive (eg. Wet & Dry affixed to flat surface), then giving
it a couple of coats of Polyeurothane. This works really well and stops
swelling and resulting splitting, extending the life of the instrument for
some time. It also gives better airtightness.
Its worth doing this even if just to tide you over until you get the plastic
comb finished. Get yourself a box 0-80x3/4 SS machine screws to replace
the nails.

The real culprits for airtightness are the slide mechanism and the reed
adjustment. Those books and the articles will help you with that.

Its taken me about two years to get to the stage where I feel confident to
rip apart a brand new HH270 and customise it for myself or friends. Its
been a long hard road, but the rewards are great. Its really good having
the ability to fix your own instruments.

I believe Herings are the wrong cell measurements for Hohner reedplates.
Suzuki Leghorn & Huang 1248 mouthpieces are really good for 270s, I don't
know about fitting a Hohner 270 to its comb though. HardBopper/Mellow Tone
mouth pieces are pretty good too.

You could probably simply take the measurements of the 270 wood comb you
have and get a block of plastic or metal milled out for your project. Do a
bit of ringing around your area to see who offers these services.

For shaping the mouthpiece for comfort, retuning (I've now learnt to retune
reeds with one without destroying the reeds!!! :), and general all round
really useful tool, get a variable speed rotary tool that can take different
sized fittings & drill bits. Also Wet and Dry is your friend from 150 grit
sheets up to 1200 grit sheets. You want nail buffing kits for finishing
surfaces. And a metal polish like Autosol for polishing finishes of metal
and plastic.

You'll need jewellers screwdrivers. A good pocket knife. Lots of rags.
Xacto knife. A cutting pad. Scissors. Flat players and bent nose plyers.
Mid size hammer (smaller than regular size, peening hammer with one flat
head and one rounded head is good size). The re-reeding kit in the Lee
Oskar tool kit is invaluable. Toothpicks. Material can be modeled and
hardened like Selley's Knead it. Araldyte. A cordless drill and a good set
of drill bits. Small model files of different shapes and sizes. A full
size fine file for metal. A small Hard Arkansas stone. A ream of A4 Mylar
sheets. Rolls of white 1" Micropore tape (for windsavers and for use while
working on parts). Flat hard surface for sanding on and for checking for
flatness. Lots of strong tearable fabric tape. A small vice. Anvils are
nice too. A collection of harmonica bits - this will build up as you start
learning on perfectly good instruments anyway. Getting a bunch of USA or
Europe made Hohners like Hot Metals and BluesBand on sale cheap sale in odd
keys makes for a good source of reeds for. Bill Romel's re-reeding kit for
US$25.

A natural light source - I use a naked frosted "Warm tone" 40 Watt light
bulb , a high workbench that is comfortable to work at with a white surface.
You need OODLES of patience.... a slow, pedantic, methodical approach, a
penchant for observing "what is", an eye for detail and a pragmatic view on
things. Either live alone, or have a really understanding family.

I hope to see you advertising your customising services in about 10 years -
you may even develop the next generation of custom chromatics. But you
should have your plastic comb harp a heck of a lot sooner than that! :o)

F&R Farrell & Bill Romel make plastic combs for the HH270.
Brendan Power sells a really well setup Hohner 270 with plastic comb for
US$250.

Have fun!
G.

- --- In harp-l-archiv~..., joel Smith wrote:
> I would like to learn how to customize/improve my harmonicas. If anyone
could tell me where i can get information on how to work on diatonic or
chromatic harmonicas i would appreciate it. I would especially like to know
how to make a plastic comb for my 270 chromonica and other ways to make it
more airtight.I also want to make the mouthpiece more comfortable. I am not
looking to send it somewhere, instead i want to learn to do these things for
myself.
>