Some Regulating issues

This page came about because of a discussion we are having on the "Harplist". If you're interested in joining our list, there are over 2000 members on this list. To join this list, send a blank message to harplist-subscribe@egroups.com. I recommend the digest form of this list so you get 1 or 2 compiled emails a day instead of 20-30 individual.

Anyway, today, Dave was regulating one of our older Swans with Loveland Levers. We had restrung the harp and made sure the 1/2 tones were correct. There are always some issues with Lovelands after doing this, and it is my job to play the harp and detect them.

Usually the tone of the levered note is what I pay attention to. So after identifying which strings needed some attention, Dave went at it while I took some pictures.

The first thing he did was straighten out any of the levers that were out of alignment. How these levers get this way is a mystery to me, but it is quite common to find lever brackets that are bent or just not straight up and down to the string. I tried to take a picture of this, but I don't think I was very succesful. We were looking at the D lever (the one that's down in the picture on the left). It was not quite straight to the string. By the time I got a good picture, we were onto the G string (the one without the white dot on the handle in the picture on the right). Dave took some needle nose pliers and tweaked the gold lever bracket to align it with the lever. He just bent it right into place.

On one of the strings, the 2nd to the highest B as seen below, we just couldn't get a good tone out of the levered note. Sometimes the weight of the lever has a reaction with the frequency of the pitch and they seem to cancel each other out thus creating a muted tone. A remedy that we learned from Ray Mooers at Dusty Strings is to drill out a lever handle and plug it with a 1/8" brass rod. Maybe you have heard of some people taping a penny to their lever handle. This is the same idea. I don't know if the penny works, but it could be worth a try. Here's a picture of the back of the lever with the brass rod set into it. If you are experiencing a muted note, you could try holding the lever while playing the note. If it improves the tone, this might be something that would help.

I hope this is somewhat entertaining if nothing else.

Sharon

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