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0 pointshilbert423mo ago0 comments

Funny you should mention that another hobby of mine was rescuing old harmoniums and making them playable again—you know, fixing and replacing reeds, renewing bug-eaten felt, sealing rat holes in the bellows, etc.

I grant you it's not in the same league as voicing a diapason though. :-)

I reckon adjusting and tweaking things goes with the territory. I'm pretty much at home tweaking crystals, fixing reeds, aligning IF stages in radio and TV equipment, there's much of a sameness in the way one tackles all of them.

BTW, I've actually repaired reeds by soldering them. Not a good fix though as the solder can fatigue with use. Throws out equal temperament a bit too but most can't hear the difference.

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afandian2mo ago

That's exactly what I'm doing! Nothing grandiose.

https://blog.afandian.com/tags/harmonium/

By 'repaired' you mean closing a fracture? I'm interested to hear your experiences! Electronics solder or silver solder?

This one is 60 cents sharp across the board (not uncommmon), but I wanted a social instrument. So I brought them down with solder. The bottom two octaves have worked out well. The next two... we'll see. I now have the fear that I've weakened the brass by heating it. But it still sounds nice and speaks well. Fingers crossed.

hilbert42OP2mo ago

"By 'repaired' you mean closing a fracture?"

Right, I haven't had many fracture but it was more than I expected. I've had some come apart (completely—shear off). One I recall fixing (replacing the reed) with a piece cut from a phosphor bronze shim several thou thick (I had various thicknesses). Replacing the reed was easy but voicing was a problem because p-bronze has different properties to the original. It was a long while ago so I can't remember exactly what I did but it worked—sort of. I eventually got it roughly in tune but it was a different volume to the others.

About two weeks ago I was up at my old family home for the first time in years and there are two harmoniums dating from the the mid to late 19th C. which I meant to fix years ago. The woodwork on one is particulary ornate and in excellent condition. They both have dead keys when I played them. Reckon I've some wok cut out for me. .

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