Why don’t you buy spare reed plates and do it yourself? Cheap fast and easy.
Ciao
Stefano
Nah. Tried that previously, and reed plates are no different from a new harp…still most likely needs some tweaking to be play well.
In 1990 I went the Lee Oskar route. Had been using Special 20 for years. Decided to buy $300 worth of harps and reed plates from LO. As I recall, I was immediately dissatisfied. Reeds were flatting out quickly, and you couldn’t really resolve anything because the internet hadn’t been developed. So I got screwed out of $300 ($750 today!). Never bought LO harps again.
I dumped the idea of reed plates because of that BAD experience. I would rather tweak them myself or buy those $200 custom harps that take 2 years to receive…lol.
What I meant was buying a new set of reeds in case you mess up with the old ones. To play safe.
Ciao
Stefano
I did see Crossover reed plates for $51 at Rockin Ron’s.
I decided to go this route.
I’ll try to replace my A Crossover 5 Draw reed.
Congratulations
I don’t know. After I bought everything, I put the Crossover back together and played it. My first impression was, after playing Special 20s all day, man, this harp sounds bright and tinny. Oh well. Lol.
The Crossover is definitely brighter. The S20 is a bit darker. However, you can brighten up the S20, if desired by modifying the covers a bit.
Yeah, I’ve not tried that yet. Also, I like the darker tone, but we’ll see. I always do this mod to my Special 20 covers. Harp tech at Dave Barrett’s turned everyone onto this modification.
How difficult is it to cut the side slots into the Sp20 cover? Dremel?
Yes, a Dremel is the tool I would use. I would get a couple of Hohner junk harps and practice on them prior to your S20. I just say Hohner harps so that you are working on the same material and can learn how it reacts.
Anybody knows where to get this reed tool from Richard Sleigh, it seems to have been discontinued:
Ciao
Stefano
You could try looking at Andrew Zajak tools he might have something similar.
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Zajac does have a similar tool. You can modify Zajac’s tool to be more in line with the Sleigh tool pictured. When I last talked to Richard a few days ago, he is considering making some of his tools again. He is talking with Kinya Pollard about finding someone to make the Reed Replacement tool. That was what I had called him about. You can also find a good gapping tool on David Church’s dbombmute.com site.
a bit of topic but you can get a cheap tool kit from AliExpress.
I just found this on AliExpress:
Harmonica Repair and Tuning Tool Kit, Chromatic Scale Polyphonic Repair, Disassembly and Cleaning Tools, Universal
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EyuDJl6
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If anyone is interested here is a link to Andrew Zajac’s tools. He offers several different packages.
https://harp.andrewzajac.ca/Tools
If you are in the US, you can get them from Rockin Ron’s
Here is a video of Jonah fox showing you how to gap reeds. Pretty easy to follow no special tools needed to gap reeds. Have fun and practice on an old harp first.
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@Stefano Something similar here but it’s out of stock at the moment.
@Dai I heard Lee Oskar harmonica reeds require their tools or universal ones (like the Harmo pocket tool).
Ciao
Stefano
The only tool that is specialised is the reed spanner as certain makes of harmonica have different width reeds.
Thanks Dai I’ll keep that in mind. Lee Oskar harmonica toolkit has been discontinued for now, they should make a new one soon.
Ciao
Stefano
I believe that Andrew Zajac’s reed wrench/spanner is configured to fit LOs and others.
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