INTEGRATED SLIDER-MOUTHPIECE - Tech Tuesday #7

[PeteHogi]

Thanks Brendon - really appreciate your expertise.

I do think there’s a little room to improve the overblow ability of this harp, but it’s in the “I could just leave it” category. But I am interested in having a better feel of the reeds, and I’m curious if these types of changes would influence the tone.

I like its tone well enough, but other people’s comments has me curious if there’s opportunities to modify.

[dominico]

I think an ideal version of this harp would be as close as possible to a traditional size harp.

I have the same goal. I want a "Trochilus" that I can toss in my pocket, without the slider getting in the way, and without having to have a hard case in order to protect the slider.

I started making prototypes of mouthpiece sliders, vertical and horizontal.
I wanted to keep the metal mouthpiece, because I like the feel of it over the plastic ones, but I came to the conclusion I would have to drill into it, which I was trying to avoid, and the path of least resistance will simply be to 3d print the mouthpieces.
Another concept I started on was using reedplate sliders to switch the reeds rather than the mouthpiece, though the placement of the reedplate screw holes being only one one side makes this, as well as any concept involving valve overplates, more difficult.

I'm trying to improve some of my other prototypes first but will most likely swing back to this soon.

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The Trochilus has generated a lot of cool customization ideas, from alternate tunings (I retuned over 30 reeds on one of mine using blue tack, though as Brendan says ultimately soldering is a better method for such a large retune)
to other slider methods to changing x-reed style harp bending!

Unfortunately I am going to have to learn how to replace spot welded reeds. I weighted a reed way to much in one of my retune experiments and it started failing on me. 39 good reeds, and that one failed one makes all the rest unusable

[dominico]

Here is my attempt at an Integrated Mouthpiece Slider
for the Trochilus

Video: https://youtu.be/mYH1oYv01RQ?si=FqdCMRQlj5jeu17S

Pros:
-it shortens the width by a half inch
-easy to install: it uses no new hardware, just replace the mouthiece and slide with the printed mouthpiece
-I feel like I could put it my pocket and walk around without it causing too much damage

Cons:
-Slide-out/slide in holes are reversed. Sharp-side is now the default side, sliding the Slider drops the note a semitone.
-The lack of a Slider button gets a bit in the way of holes 9 and 10, could add a low profile slider button to mitigate this
-I prefer the feel of the metal slider over plastic
-the ease of sliding vs air-tightness balance needs to be adjusted to the player's preference.

Even though I'm playing a Low F in the video the airtightness is very good for pretty much all the bends, especially considering I haven't even sanded it. I printed it on an engineering flat plate and popped it right onto the harp, no Vaseline or Slider oil. That said I think I could improve it even further by having the mouthpiece wrap a bit around the comb like the metal one does. I would need to print a special sanding fixture to sand the inside of the mouthpiece if I do that however.

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[PeteHogi]

Pretty awesome man. Mine are in cue and will print at the library this week, I’ll be sure to post how it goes!

[PeteHogi]

How’s the air tightness? Will it still overblow?

[Brendan]

Nice job Dominick Is that PLA or ABS you're using?

Integrated Slider-Mouthpiece is too much of a mouthful (haha) for this thing. So I'm now calling it a MouthSlider.

Shorter and still descriptive, because it combines a mouthpiece and slider in one.

A MouthSlider is an essential part of the new X-Reed MORBENDZ harp, because it couldn't actually work with a conventional mouthpiece/slider assembly! But on the Trochilus it's an option - with advantages and disadvantages, as you say.

Weighing up all the pros and cons, it will be interesting to see if you and Peter decide a MouthSlider is better in the long run than the JDR factory mouthpiece/slider assembly.

[triona]

-I prefer the feel of the metal slider over plastic

When you will have found the ideal form of this part, you can mill - or let mill - one out of brass or any other suitable metal. Or is there any self-lubricating effect of the plastic which is essential for the function?


dear greetings
triona