funny taste to my wood harmonica

[mutepointe]

hey folks:

i've owned harmonicas ever since 2002 when i had heart surgery and learned to play for breathing exercises. i have an assortment of harmonicas that includes one hohner blues harmonica that has a wood frame. over the years it began to taste funny when i played. all my other harmonicas are cheapies and hohner with plastic or synthetic frames of some sort. they don't taste funny. other than keeping my harmonicas in a bag, i take no care of them. is there anything that i should do? is there anything that i can do to get rid of the funny taste to the wood harmonica? it can taste like anything from old wood to slightly burnt wood to musty wood to me.

[SteveShaw]

A bloke who smoked gave me a batch of his harmonicas to clean up and tune for him. They were disgusting! Even after a good cleaning, the wood-comb ones still stank (they were fine on the blow notes, but the draws... ). If the Hohner harps you possess have the letters "MS" on the cover their combs are made of non-absorbent wood (that is, they won't swell if you wash them out, though I would never soak them for even a minute). If they're the old-style blues harps or Marine Bands (without the MS stamp, and covers that are nailed on with a pair of nails at each end), the wood swells like mad if you wet them. The old blues guys used to soak these harps then file down the proud wood at the mouthpiece, but I definitely think this is generally a bad idea. My MS wood harps get a good rinse through with tepid water after every session (then tap out the excess water and leave out to dry overnight). You can do this with even more impunity with plastic-comb harps. Just don't do it with any harp that has wind-saving valves inside (little white flaps covering some or all of the reed-slots), and definitely never wash out Hohner Echo tremolos. One wash-through of your Echo and you have a wrecked harmonica.
If I had a whiffy wood-comb harp what would I do? Hmm. Strip it down to its parts and carefully clean all the gunge off the metal bits. Good old soapy water is fine, and some chaps soak the metal bits (and plastic if that's what the comb is) in a solution made from denture-cleaning tablets or powder. Use a matchstick or similar to whittle away all the nasty deposits that collect in the mouthpiece holes. MS comb, a quick wash in tepid water with an old toothbrush to get the remaining crud off. Plastic combs are easier. Get all the parts dry then clean them with isopropyl alcohol (I steal my wife's cotton wool buds for this), including the wood. If you can't easily buy this stuff, it's the liquid in the little bottles that come with cassette head-cleaning kits or the kits you get for cleaning the laser lens in CD players. You can often buy refill bottles. A little bit lasts a long time. It's incredibly easy to damage reeds when cleaning if you go about it the wrong way. Always work down from the rivet ends to the free ends and never vice versa. Give the whole works a thorough airing before reassembling. You should at least have reduced the smell, and even if there's a bit of it left you at least know that the harp is hygienic.
On a more philosophical level, it's tempting to regard wood as the traditional be-all and end-all, but after years of playing both wood and plastic harps I'm completely convinced that the comb material doesn't make the slightest difference to the tone of the harp. So I never buy wood-combed 10-hole harps these days, precisely because of the cleaning issue. Lots of players would disagree, but one of the harmonica world's great gurus and as good an authority on all things harmonica as there is, Pat Missin, agrees with me. His is a fantastic website, by the way. Here's his take on comb materials.

[mutepointe]

I'm going to try the quick rinse first. If that doesn't work, I'll try all the complicated stuff and I'll be sure to break the harmonica in the process. This is my only D harmonica. Then I'll get a new harmonica that has the alternate tuning that you and MTGuru mentioned in a thread a long time ago. I play melodies and harmonies too and would like to have those missing notes. I agree about plastic/wood combs. When I first bought good harmonicas, I bought an assortment so that I could see what I liked. I like plastic better. Thanks.

[SteveShaw]

You won't break it. It's only a matter of undoing screws and then not doing them up again too tightly. Just the act of putting them back together carefully can improve things. I don't trust myself when it comes to dismantling and I take digital photos of every stage so that I can go into reverse. The ones that are nailed together are admittedly a bit trickier. I wear one of those LED headlamps and my reading specs these days during all such operations.

[rh]

It seems to me that i read somewhere that Hohner's Blues Harp model is made out of some moisture-resistant tropical wood (rather than the pearwood that the MB is made from) and that the wood itself has a funky taste and smell. So if that's the model you have, then cleaning the harp may not do the trick and the solution then may be to either seal the comb with beeswax or get a different harp.

[SteveShaw]

That's correct, Rob. I can't remember the name of the wood offhand. I think it's fine to rinse the moisture-resistant combs through (though Hohner wouldn't recommend it) but I would avoid soaking. I think I'd get the comb right out, separated from the other components, and have a go at gingerly but progressively cleaning it, finishing with the isopropyl alcohol.

[mutepointe]

Lucky me for procrastinating. We changed the songs at church for Lent and I didn't need my D. Also, lucky me, I have some church beeswax candles. That'll take care of things. That might even help my mustache from getting caught. Yow that hurts.

Why would they make a harmonica from a nasty tasting wood? Thanks folks.

[SteveShaw]

I've never noticed a nasty taste, but that could be because I don't tongue-block I suppose.

[rh]

Here's details on the beeswax procedure; it's for a Marine Band, so you can skip the parts on drilling out the reedplates if you have an MS harp:
http://www.harpl.com/199851430.html

[SteveShaw]

Here's details on the beeswax procedure; it's for a Marine Band, so you can skip the parts on drilling out the reedplates if you have an MS harp:
http://www.harpl.com/199851430.html

Or you could save yourself the work (sorry to sound so dismally defeatist! ) and, for just a few quid more, buy yourself a Marine Band Deluxe. They have sealed combs and are screwed throughout. I have one and, frankly, I'm not that impressed. I'd rather have a good ol' plastic-comb SP20 any time!
If you insist on sealing wood combs with beeswax, there are a couple of things you should know. First, it doesn't always work. Second, it could be very dangerous. I advise anyone contemplating this procedure to read this first.
You could just buy plastic-comb harps. You won't notice the difference, and you can wash them through with impunity.

[mutepointe]

Hello people! We are talking me here. I was sure that by just rinsing my harmonica that I was going to ruin it. Do you think I have any hope of reading the entire instructions much less carrying out the instructions successfully? I did read the first few steps til I got to the part about drilling. When it comes to power tools, my skills begin and end with destruction. In the time it could take me to just read the instructions, I could cut someone's lawn and just buy a new harmonica. I was just planning on rubbing a beeswax candle across the part of the harmonica that touches my mouth. I was also considering eating a piece of butterscotch candy while I played the harmonica and leaving flavor essence behind.

Have you folks actually performed this beeswax surgery? I do appreciate the effort and thought. If this was an heirloom or expensive harmonica, I might trust this to more skilled hands than mine. It's nice to know options exist.

From here on out, I'm sticking with plastic combs.

[Whistling Archer]

Man I wouldnt use beeswax. Just take it completely apart . Put some mineral in a disposable plate. Set the comb in there and turn it over & over ,,,, making sure everything is coated.. Then let it sit in the oil 20 minutes. Set comb aside to drain, {on paper towels so no big mess} wipe excess off & set aside again to dry. Wait until the next day ,,, and just put her back together. Ive done this to some old harps "one prewar" and newer wood comb harps.

And some woods do taste funny at first . Im a tongue blocker. Fo me I ts the only way to go.
Plastic is fine though. But the harps w/ wood combs sealed in the above method ,,, really require no more maintenance. IMHO
Steve

[daiv]

taking apart a harmonica is no big deal. my concertina costs approximately 200 times more than your harmonica, and there are some weeks where i take it apart several times. all you have to do is be careful. it is a good thing that you respect your instrument, but you needn't be afraid of it. when i bought my 140 year old flute, i got a rod stuck in it the first day i had it. i had to take a hammer to it to get it out. stuff happens (and my flute was fine).

and besides.... if your harmonica smells and you dont want to play it, if you break it while trying to fix it, then there's no big loss, cuz you werent playing it anyways. just think of it this way: you could break 100 harmonicas and you'd still be a long way from paying for my concertina. and a concertina is really just 6 harmonicas stacked on top of eachother with some goat skin thrown between them.

i think the big lesson here is to take care of your harmonicas! you should be tapping them out (hitting them against your knee) between songs, and wiping it down every time you get any gunk on it from your mouth... wiping the grease off of it is a good idea. also, take all of them apart every once a while, and clean out the inside with a toothpick or a damp rag. that way you wont have to worry about them smelling. oh! and of course... always brush your teeth or rinse out your mouth well with water before you play.

[daiv]

Man I wouldnt use beeswax. Just take it completely apart . Put some mineral in a disposable plate. Set the comb in there and turn it over & over ,,,, making sure everything is coated.. Then let it sit in the oil 20 minutes. Set comb aside to drain, {on paper towels so no big mess} wipe excess off & set aside again to dry. Wait until the next day ,,, and just put her back together. Ive done this to some old harps "one prewar" and newer wood comb harps.

And some woods do taste funny at first . Im a tongue blocker. Fo me I ts the only way to go.
Plastic is fine though. But the harps w/ wood combs sealed in the above method ,,, really require no more maintenance. IMHO
Steve

what is mineral? i'm assuming mineral oil? sounds like good advice.

[mutepointe]

Hey daiv, your point about the concertina was funny. At Christmas a couple of years ago, I received an ancient Bashtari concertina that was in horrible shape. It was covered in dust that looked like felt and must have sat on a smoker's bookshelf for decades at it was covered with a layer of yellow tar and smelled like a finely aged ashtray. In the first months that I owned the thing, I took that thing apart a 100 times to clean it, repair it, and because it kept jamming. It works fine now for what I play on it.

The quick rinse was enough to solve the taste of the harmonica problem.