chrometta nails to screws

[antgeth]

not sure if this is in the right forum or not, and there's nothing revolutionary here but i just had to boast!

my first chromatic (a gift from my parents at age 11) was a chrometta 12 and it has had many, many hours of use since!  its only shortcoming are the nails that held it together very tightly... tight enough that i was discouraged on several occasions from trying to remove them during maintenance.

well, a couple of days ago i decided enough was enough! i spent about 40 minutes tapping all 10 nails out with a hammer and a standoff post i stole from my pile of discarded/broken electronics.  as difficult as it was it was immensely satisfying to clean out 15 years worth of gunk!

then i ran into a problem, though, which is that no matter how hard i tried i could NOT get the nails back in, even after trying to widen the holes in the reedplate a tiny bit.  i had rendered it useless!

fast forward to today, i went to the hardware store, where i bought some #2-5/8" screws and nuts.  i knew #2 (sorry, i'm not sure what that is in metric!) was a little bit too big, but i thought the difference would be minor.  well, i was wrong.   i ended up having to do a lot of drilling to the reedplates with a hand drill and the lousy bits that i have (that are not meant for brass).  i also had to widen some of the holes in the comb... but only some.  for whatever reason the pre-existing holes were of varying widths.

turns out 5/8" was just the right length, as you can see in the picture.  i fastened them all together and my chrometta is as good as — nay, BETTER than new!  once again it is by far my most airtight, and least fiddly-chromatic!  (now if only they made a tenor version...)

so no, this was not very difficult (especially compared to wood comb conversions), but i'd never done anything of the sort before and i am positively thrilled that i was able to do it with sub-par tools and equipment, and most of all that the operation was a complete success!  so please, forgive my vanity; i had to share!

lower reedplate finished, upper plate only two holes done:


assembled topside:


assembled bottomside (i didn't feel confident enough to tap the plates, nor do i have tapping tools, which is why i went the nut route). you can see the screws are barely long enough!:

[John Broecker]

Hello, Antgeth.

Congratulations on a job well-done.

I have never done major repairs on any
harmonica. I envy you.

Best Regards

John Broecker

[Crawforde]

Well done!
I love the feeling of playing a harmonica saved from the junk heap.

[jimjams]

It should be more airtight. Did the tone improve? Love that Chrometta tone.

[antgeth]

It should be more airtight. Did the tone improve? Love that Chrometta tone.

i didn't think it could be more airtight than it was already... but it does in fact seem to be slightly more responsive than before.  (it's possible i'm just imagining it)

[SlideMeister]

The only thing that comes close to the Chrometta tone is the old Boat shaped 16 hole swan 1664-6 what they don't make no more.

[smojoe]

A.J. contact me at 3N037 @ comcast. net       I am unable to use the personal message feature for some reason.

smo-joe

[jimjams]

The only thing that comes close to the Chrometta tone is the old Boat shaped 16 hole swan 1664-6 what they don't make no more.

Age, I just took a chance and recently ordered one I found on aliexpress. I'll let you know if it turns out to be the real thing.   

[BeeWee]

Nice job,
The first conversion I did was on a chrometta 8, with red comb. Also using bolts and nuts. Nowadays I use bolts and tab. There's a thread on how I use to get the nails out, takes 10 minutes, and than drill and tab.

[SlideMeister]

The only thing that comes close to the Chrometta tone is the old Boat shaped 16 hole swan 1664-6 what they don't make no more.

Age, I just took a chance and recently ordered one I found on aliexpress. I'll let you know if it turns out to be the real thing.   

I hope it is the 1664-6 which is cross-tuned with rounded mouth piece. If it's straight tuned with a  has a squared mouth piece, you're probably not gunna be happy. The one I have was given to me cuz it leaked. A re-shaping (very careful bending) of the mouth piece, and it plays very nicely. Mellow sound and nice response.

[jimjams]

The description indicated 1664-6 and the pics showed the rounded mouthpiece and cross-tuning.

But that is not necessarily what will arrive in the mail. 

[SlideMeister]

The description indicated 1664-6 and the pics showed the rounded mouthpiece and cross-tuning.

But that is not necessarily what will arrive in the mail. 

Well, the numbers are right, so here's hoping it is!

[jimjams]

The description indicated 1664-6 and the pics showed the rounded mouthpiece and cross-tuning.

But that is not necessarily what will arrive in the mail. 

Well, the numbers are right, so here's hoping it is!

It came and it's the right one! I'm giving it a workout this evening.