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From: Charles Deering
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 12:34:53 -0500
Subject: Bolt That Harp!

I hope I'm not sending this twice, but I didn't see it in the digests.

I finally got around to replacing the nails on my Hohner 270
with bolts. I relied heavily on Doug Tate's post, "Bolt that Harp!"
from 11/12/95 and his book _Make Your Harmonica Play Well_.

I got the 0-80 x 5/8" panhead screws w/nuts from Farrell's. I
found a hardware store that sells wire gage drill bits, and used
one of the screws with their gage to get the smallest workable
bit size. Against Doug's advice I used a drill stand with my
electric drill. I made a jig out of a small piece of wood to
keep the harmonica aligned. I gouged a little trough for the
rivets as well as for each bolt as I put them in.

I replaced all the nails with bolts but relocated three of them.
For the pair of nails which don't line up, I used the location
on the bottom reed plate. For the two front nails, I moved the
bolts toward the ends and front of the instrument, getting them
out from under the coverplates. The high one goes through the
center of the spring hole. (I also had to file a little off the
flat ends of the coverplates to make it work.) The rear nail on
the high end of the instrument also conflicted with the coverplates
so I moved it toward the center of the instrument a little.

I did this on my best instrument (against everybody's advice)
and found it surprisingly easy for one of very limited
mechanical ability. The instrument sounds at least as good as
it did with nails, maybe better. My main reason for the bolts,
is that I need to take the reedplates off occasionally to touch
up the tuning and work on the windsavers. The nails get loose
eventually.

I agree with Farrell that their similar and more extensive
modification is a bargain but I still ordered two unmodified
ones recently because I didn't think I would ever have the
reedplates off more than about twice, for initial tuning and
possibly to work on the valves. These two were a 270 in C to
keep tuned to A443 just in case and a tenor-tuned 270 for
infrequent use.

Just trying to be helpful to anyone contemplating a similar job.
See ya in the archives.

Charles Deering