206A notes die out

[2wice]

Good day

I found 1 x 205V, 1 x 206 smashed and 7 x 206A.

I'm chopping one of the 206A's at the moment and it sounds lovely, but where the little bridging plates are on the higher notes, the notes die out. the sustain is shorter than the notes above and below those plates. Can I remove those plates without any harm? And will this improve the sustain?

Also, what can I do with the 205V, I don't think it will look so nice chopped, with all the extra buttons & switches.

[VintageSoul]

You might want to check the adjustment of the dampers. I had a problem on my 206A where a few notes would ring out longer than all the others.  It ended up being that the damper was set too high (therefore not quieting the note as it should).  If the damper is set too low on a note, it's going to stop the reed from vibrating and not let the note ring out like it should.

[2wice]

Hi VintageSoul

It is the reverse, the notes are are not ringing as long as the other notes, even with the pedal down.

I'm going to remove those plates now to see if it make a differance

[VintageSoul]

Correct, see what I wrote in the second part of my post...

If the damper is set too low on a note, it's going to stop the reed from vibrating and not let the note ring out like it should.

You may check to see if there is a damper felt that is deadening the reed.

[2wice]

I understand that, but that's not it. The damper is nowhere near the reed. It is definitely those little plates, I have now removed it and it is much better.

The sustain is now the same length as the adjacent note. It was wildly out of tune afterwords of course, but I moved the reed forward and got it smack bang on the note first time.

The second reed not so easy, had to move that bugger forward and back all the time to get it tuned.
   

[VintageSoul]

Ahhh, I see.  Glad you got it worked out.   

[hchinaski]

I've been having the exact same issue with the notes where those rectangular plates are.   I removed the first couple of plates and the notes are much less muffled.  So far no one has been able to explain to me what those plates are for and if there is any harm in removing them.  I presume they have a purpose but they are strangling the reeds.

[Max Brink]

The plates were likely to add mass to reinforce the reed from loosing energy to fundamental frequencies within the instrument that can also deaden notes. Although the instrument's reed bar was otherwise left unchanged from the 200 to the 200A they stopped using the plates early in 200A production. I always remove them because of the deadening that you are experiencing and because they complicate tuning.

[2wice]

Yeah I also thought it had something to do with the harmonics of the whole treble harp, because they are smack bang in the middle of the harp and should dampen any stray harmonics. But I don't know enough about sound energies and thought it was the tinfoil speaking.