Carbon Fiber Concert Harps….Please soon!

[kimberly-rowe]

OK, guys, let’s stay on topic please…..

Thanks!

[Denise Krasicki]

Kim, I am so sorry you had to be dragged into this, but it has gone from someone’s venting and fantasy to something much more dangerous in the legal realm.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Well, this has obviously been a hard road for everyone involved. If it eases your mind any, it was never obvious that Mrs. O’Carroll was doing business with Venus until very recently. Perhaps she was upset by not knowing all that you were doing and having to do on your end, and sometimes thinking that nothing was happening. There is nothing better than progress reports to ease one’s stress. You haven’t addressed the condition of the harp, though, and why she needed to return it, that I recall. Having such a distance to be covered would certainly add to anyone’s distress if in great need of a harp. I, for one, don’t think her obviously high standards have to be lowered because she lives in Tasmania, which is quite beatiful in a very weird way, and the fact that there is a flaw in her new harp only shows that she does not discriminate between harp manufacturers in her expectations. In fact, she seems to have owned or played on more types of harps than anyone I know! Yes, these forums can be dangerous as they seem to encourage emotional responses and are published immediately for all who care to see. I think business owners can rest assured that they are taken with a grain of salt by any reader who has been around the internet for very long. I have aired a few peeves, myself, some of long standing, some of little or no importance. It is up to the reader to consider the intended weight of the statement. We are all adjusting to the peskiness of the internet, and its new requirements of us. It’s terrible you had to have surgery, and I hope you are recovering well.

[Denise Krasicki]

Enough people figured it out to email and call

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

Denise, please describe how Venus was a means to an end for her? It seems to me that if she wanted a L&H harp in the first place, she simply would’ve gotten it. How did the problems she had with her Venus enable her to get the L&H?

Confused!

[Denise Krasicki]

I said earlier – end of discussion – its obvious from her posts.

[Christian Frederick]

Oh my goodness………

So, back to the original subject.

David, you seem to be one big step ahead of me and my average knowledge of the world.

Do you think that carbon fibre is a potential substitue for the metal parts of a pedal harp? How would this work in the real world? Are there other substitutes in the real world that are stonger and don’t rust, such as other metal and alloys?

I’m just curious…..

And also, now I know that there are people in the harp manufacturing world that actually read these fantasies of full-time musicians, such as myself, who live in the real world, making a living playing music.

[David Ice]

Hi Christian,

Believe it or not, I do have a degree in chemistry (which I have never, ever used!) but I certainly am no expert on metalurgy or carbon fiber.

[barbara-brundage]

Christian, I’m curious about this:

>I also have noticed that the instrument insurance policies exclude intruments within a certain distance from the ocean.

What insurance company is that?

(BTW, David, you sure have done a lot of different things in your life!)

[David Ice]

Hi Barbara,

As Auntie Mame once said, “Life is a banquet, and most poor fools are starving to death!”

[john-strand]

Wonderful Dorothy Ashby – she left us way too early – I remember reading somewhere that her husband also installed carpeting on the inside of the pedalbox to minimize the pedal sounds during recording sessions – and carbon fiber – it has been used very successfully in Ovation guitars round backs for probably 40 years

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

Very odd that it’s the end of discussion. You have made lots of comments about one of our regular, helpful posters. I just wanted some clarification on some of the aspersions cast upon one of our own.

June

[barbara-brundage]

>maybe some of the coastal harpists have some experience with what goes bad from the salt air that might be amenable to replacement with carbon fiber or some other material –

Well, for more than 20 years I’ve never lived farther than a mile from the ocean and usually much closer (although I don’t take pedal harps to beach gigs when given a choice). And I have to say that I have never ever had a mechanical problem from the salt. Of course, most of my pedal harps have been old enough to have brass plates and discs, which helps.

Oddly the one problem I did have was during the years when I lived on high floors in Miami Beach and didn’t use the air conditioning much at all. The salty (Saharan and construction) dust that blew in was almost impossible to remove from the carving on gigging harps. If you take a harp to an outdoor gig in the summer in FL, it’s brutal enough out there that the finish goes a tad soft for a while, and the dust sinks in. I was living on the 16th floor on the west side of South Beach when all the renovations to transform the world’s retirement capital into SoBe were going on, and had huge windows which were almost always open. The side of my 23’s base that faced the east window got dust in the carving (despite frequent washing and polishing and scouring with cotton swabs) that even L&H said could only be removed by a refinish.

Gold can also be a problem–in coastal FL, a gold harp isn’t just a harp, it’s a lifestyle decision. But I currently live across the street from the beach on a very narrow island and every room in the house except the bathroom has sliding doors. I keep them open from October through the first part of June (just closed up for the summer) and with west and south facing windows (as opposed to getting the straight from Africa winds) have had no problems with my 11.

I won’t do beach weddings up here where I am now, but there are certainly other harpists who will come up here from South Florida and lug a pedal harp onto or over the dune crossover for gigs I wouldn’t take a prelude out for. Go figure. But their harps continue to function, for sure.

[barbara-brundage]

>My real love was film, and I sort of was in the right place at the right time to break into the biz.

Hmm, why do I think you’re probably being modest here? I suspect that the only time that just being in the right place at the right time worked was when LA was mostly orange groves and talkies hadn’t been invented yet. 🙂

Dorothy Ashby–wow. I love her recordings.

[kreig-kitts]

David’s comment about the

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