New string, pedals now all wrong

[jaydg]

I had to replace my 4th octave D a couple of days ago. It was one of those ‘heart attack’ ones, sitting there quietly and ‘bang!’

Anyway, string replaced, obviously it keeps going out of tune as it stretches.

But the pedals are all wrong now too, when I get the string in tune, both pedal positions are very flat.

Is this just because the string is still too stretchy?

All the other Ds are fine, so it’s not the pedal or rod. I’ve moved the pin up as far as it will go.

I don’t think I can move the natural disc anymore, as the string is already touching it (not buzzing) when the pedal is in the flat position.

Then again, I’m very new to this, so I am likely to be wrong.

No technician available til April (I have booked a regulation), so if I’m not to drive myself, my hubs and my teacher mad, I’ll have to sort it out myself.

Any advice please?

[charles-nix]

Changing a string should not move anything very far out of regulation. Perhaps something moved while you were replacing the string.

For instance, did the string get caught on the natural and/or sharp disc during install, and move them out of regulation? It is (very) odd that the string would be “touching the [natural] disc (but not buzzing!) when in flat”. That implies the the natural disc is either rotated way too far (maybe you dislodged the locking screw?) or you’ve threaded the string _beside_ the prongs instead of _through_ them. (Yes, I’ve seen it done.)

Beyond that, additional information would help:
What is the brand/model of harp?
Did you replace gut 4D with gut or nylon?
Did you change string brands?
Can you post a photo of the 4D area showing the adjustable nuts and disc?
When the 4D is tuned to Db, how many cents off are natural and sharp?

@carl-swanson will hopefully see this and have more thoughts, and the extra information will help.

Charles Nix

[jaydg]

Hi Charles, thanks for looking at it for me, here’s the extra info:

The harp is a Pilgrim Malvern (well regarded British makers). 47 strings, extended soundboard, smaller than a full concert grand.
I replaced the gut string with the same brand gut – Bow Brand light gut.
When the string is in tune with the pedal in flat, the natural and the sharp pedals are both about 30 cents flat.

Here are the photos of the disc area. The pin block is deliberately slanted, in an effort to make the discs take up more string. But even with it vertical, I had the same issue.

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[charles-nix]

The adjustable nut being slanted looks like it is throwing the string off center enough for the string to take a bend around the upper natural prong.

_IF_ that is really the case, then when you tune, you are not tuning the length of the string from soundboard to nut, but from soundboard to upper prong of natural. Then when you move to natural, and the lower prong rotates, it is only shortening the string by the distance between the prongs, rather than the distance from nut to lower prong. That would make it _very_ flat, indeed.

Any regulation (pitch) mistake in natural will only be propagated to sharp, because the natural to sharp distance is fixed. The only adjustment for sharp (in that string range) is with grip.

The strings must be centered on the disc, so that both prongs engage at the same time.

I would also check to see if the natural disc has loosened. If it was not really locked tight, it might have moved. It is hard to tell since the photo is at a slight angle, but it looks like it is quite closed. The grip in natural looks excessive unless that is all being caused by the nut slant.

I would expect all the adjustable nuts to be near their highest point on a new harp, else there would be no adjustment left later on when the soundboard pulls up.

If you loosen a disc, be sure you know which direction to turn the screws and discs on _your_ harp. They turn opposite directions to each other to tighten, but harp makers differ on which ones are RH and LH threads. Yours look like they should be RH on the screw and LH on the disc. Here is a blog on Harp Column about replacing discs which describes the tightening/loosening process. https://harpcolumn.com/blog/article/five-easy-fixes/

Hints: 1) Use a good-quality screwdriver, and don’t slip. 2) Get the string completely out of the way, or you WILL nick it. 3) Don’t over-tighten and break the screw, but in that range they need to be good and tight to hold the discs.

[jaydg]

Ok, now it’s really weird.

It wasn’t that string I replaced at all – I think I just made that assumption, because the string kept losing pitch.

I found this out because in desperation I thought – maybe there was something wrong with that string, I’ll replace it. When I came to it, it wasn’t my harp knot on the end.

Anyway, I have now replaced it with a new string (the old one WAS about to go), but the problem remains.

And now I don’t even have a reason why it’s gone funny in the first place. I haven’t moved the harp recently, the other Ds are fine….???

[jaydg]

Thanks Charles. I’ll straighten that nut up. The harp is 4 years old. It’s new to me, a couple of months ago. The soundboard is just beginning to bow up a bit.

[charles-nix]

Perhaps it was losing pitch because the screws on the nut were loose, or the disc screw.

You can find information on regulating harps on various websites. Mike Lewis has a series of past articles from Harp Column on his website. The best resource for harpists for all types of repairs is Carl Swanson’s book, A Guide for Harpists. Don’t know if anyone carries that in the UK, but it is worth the postage to send from the US. It covers anything and everything a harpist could ever hope to attempt to do.

[jaydg]

So, I’ve straightened the adjustable nut, and altered taken some of the ‘rake’ out of the natural disc.

It’s much better. Not right yet, but far more bearable.

So I think what happened was:
1. This D string was an old one, which was starting to separate by the discs, and lose its tuning. Was this why suddenly the discs could no longer move the string enough?
2. I mistook the losing tuning as evidence it was a string I replaced the other day.
3. I set out to solve the flat natural and sharp and couldn’t fix it – but I did move the nut and natural disc.
4. In the end, I replaced the string, which is when I realised that it was, in fact, an old, dying one.
5. Putting things back to how they had been, as spotted and advised by Charles – now with the new string – put things back closer to normal.

I’ll now let the new string settle down before I attempt to improve the disc regulation.

[jaydg]

Cross-posting..

I’ve ordered Carl’s book from a UK supplier, who advertised it as in stock, but in fact were waiting for a shipment from US that still hasn’t arrived, several weeks later. Maybe I should cancel the order and try to get one sent directly.

[charles-nix]

Two suggestions:
Keep a string log book of what was replaced and when.
Leave the tag end of replaced strings hanging some extra out of the tuning pin. That way when you sit down to play, you know to check tuning on those strings at least. When they hold pitch reliably, trim the end off closely, like the others.

If you’re having damp weather with high humidity inside, that’s why the one string broke, and the other was coming apart. I’m surprised you haven’t had any in the 2nd or 1st octave if 4th octave are breaking.

[jaydg]

Both great suggestions, will do that, thank you 👍🏽 Well, log now, long tags in future.

We’ve had two bad storms, back to back, at the weekend, so maybe that’s it. And I did have two tiny strings break too!

[balfour-knight]

Hello Jaydg and Charles,

I just caught up with this thread. Charles, your advice was remarkable!

Just a word of caution to anyone else reading this: if you have a Camac pedal harp, the discs work differently than they do on traditional makes of harps. The discs do not “screw on,” but are attached to their spindles with a friction cone system. The conical end of the spindle which extends out from the front action plate is inserted into the disk, and the tightening screw wedges the disk onto the spindle, locking the two together by friction. Also, the natural discs turn counter-clockwise to engage, and the sharp discs turn clockwise when the pedal is used, so one set of screws has regular threads, and the other set has reverse threads. All this is explained in the Camac manual, of course, but I would not want someone to get Carl’s book and try to regulate a Camac harp with it! Otherwise, I agree with Charles, Carl’s book is great, and I used it very much over the years when working on my Lyon & Healy harps.

Hope you get your harp working well, Jaydg! Sorry I came in to this pretty late.

Best wishes,
Balfour

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