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From: Pat Missin
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 18:54:48
Subject: Re: Micropore MB's-Disassembly?

Ray Beltran wrote:
>
>Okay, y'all. What's the secret in taking apart and putting back together
>Marine Bands if only to re-gap them, let only gasketing them? These funny
>looking nails don't seem strong enough to keep everything back together
>again. I'm new to Marine Bands, and am not sure what to do.

Well, a lot of work can be done to them without taking them apart. You can
do pretty much anything to the draw reeds with that plate still in place.
You can gap the blow reeds by poking around (CAREFULLY!!!) with a
toothpick, or similar. You can also tune them by lifting the tip of the
reed (Even MORE carefully!!!) from the inside, using a screwdriver,
allowing you to work on the reed from the outside. Far better than this, is
to use some sort of abrasive attachment to a Dremel, or similar and work
though the slot.

If you have to remove the reedplates, then by far the most important thing
is to loosen the reedplates very carefully, so as not to put any unwanted
kinks into them. A very thin knife blade, or similar, slid under the plates
should help to get the nails loose.

Before reassembling, fill the holes in the comb left by the nails by
driving a sliver of toothpick (or matchstick, or whatever) into the hole,
then sand down the whole comb. For re assembly, I use a jig made from
meccano, to make sure that the plates are properly aligned with the comb as
I drive the nails back into place.

The first few times you do this, you will probably make some mistakes, but
if you learn from them, then you it is not such a difficult job to put them
together better as good as new, or even better. If you have any more
specific questions I will be glad to try to answer them.

-- Pat.