Along with commentary in bold type by Paul Culotta

I have a theory that the current folk harp boom is due to two relatively recent inventions: electronic tuners and decent sharpening levers.

I believe that Mr. Thormahlem does not realize that the problems with the insinuated "indecent levers" all emanated from the attempt to make the original blade levers tunable. That is, to have a press fit shank to slide slippy slidy in and out, and a tapered blade to vary the tension on the string. Of course with use, the press fit lever becomes loose and eventually falls out. This has nothing to do with being a blade lever, but only with the attempt to make the lever tunable-----Always a second rate idea because it engineers for the convenience of the harpmaker and not the benefit of the harper.

Keep this comment in mind, as later in Mr. Thormahlens comments, it leads to a comical irony based on his admitted ineptness and his ignorance of this fact.

Without these two things, most people would have a hard time keeping their harps in tune. Harps sound so much better when they are truly in tune.

I fully agree Dave. And that is why I guarantee my levers to be within 14 cents of perfect intonation at the time of sale and within 17 cents as long as the purchasers own the harp. And, I invite anybody examining my harps, indeed request them to bring their own tuning meters to check the intonation of any of the levers of any harp on display including the demo harps several years old. If you're at Somerset this July, come check my harps yourself. Anyone is invited to do so. As with all other types of frets, precise positioning is first established for my levers, then they are anchored completely immovably into the wood with NO slippy slidy tuning adjustment possible. I have a demonstration to show how securely they are installed, which I let my customers perform on any lever on any harp at my display. Next Somerset, I'll send them to you to perform the same demonstration on your harps. gt

In our shop we currently offer 3 really great sets of levers. Most production harpmakers are using Loveland Levers as their standard lever. Betty Truitt's levers are preferred by many players, particularly if they do a lot of lever flipping mid song because they engage more quietly. We have been hearing a lot of praise for the Lyon & Healy's Performance Levers. These have a very smooth action with easy to see color- coded rubber caps on the handles.

Each of these lever systems uses a different action to move the string and stop it. The Loveland's have a plastic handle mounted on a brass angle bracket. When the handle is lifted, the string is pushed toward the neck and is stopped by a fret pin that is also mounted on the angle bracket.

The Truitt levers employ a rotating fret pin that rolls up a radiated brass block under the string pushing the string away from the neck of the harp.

Lyon and Healy's Performance levers use a disc mounted on an angle bracket. The disc captures the string between two points on the rim of the disc by pushing the string sideways.

All three of these lever systems have slotted bases for allowing adjustment up and down the string for fine tuning the semitone.

It is just this adjustment that vibrates itself out of adjustment and requires that the levers be periodically tuned. Also, note that all the levers referred to are "flip up" levers. This is not a coincidence nor is it in any way a benefit to the harpers. Harpers have no choice. It is only that flip up levers represent the least of the Rube Goldberg methods of making tunable frets (something I consider a rather outlandish and failure oriented engineering) The manufacturers make up for it though in the from tweedle-dee to tweedle-dum mechanisms described above. All of this is to produce a tunable fret when there is NO justification whatever for tunable levers except for the convenience of the harpmakers when originally installing them.

And as always, when something is engineered for a purpose other than its intended use, it is at the expense of the ultimate user and always bad engineering. Flip up levers often require significant superfluous hand motion when changing levers while playing. It isn't so bad when the harper is changing only one lever for each excursion with the left hand, but in complicated arrangements where 2, 3, or even 4 changes are required in a very short time it becomes impossible.

In the action of all sharpening levers the string is stretched. The Lovelands push the string down, the Truitts push it up and the performance levers push it sideways as do Triplett Ultima Blades. The moving of the lever, and the obvious way to tune the sharpened note, but you can also tune the sharpened note by changing how much the string gets stretched by the action of the lever.

With Loveland and Truitt levers, the height of the bridge pin will determine how much the string gets stretched. Because these levers push the string up and down with respect to the surface of the neck, the height of the bridge pin will control the amount of stretch. I find that setting the bridge in height is a better way to tune my sharps because I can get bigger changes in pitch by tapping the pins or pulling them out than I can by moving the levers.

Not only does Mr. Thormahlen admit to not being able to originally place levers even within their adjustment range, but then admittedly resorts to the failed technology (press fit shank pulled in and out to tune by varying the tension on the string) of levers he referred to in his first sentence of this reply to my article.

Actually, I use the phenomenon he refers to strictly to the benefit of my customers. It is used not to tune the levers but to reduce excessive hand motion in changing levers. (Think about it and read my literature for my levers, and you may be able to figure it how that can be.)

Have you ever had the situation where you move the lever toward the bridge pin to flatten your sharp and the darn thing doesn't change? Well, its because at the same time you moved the lever toward the bridge pin, the lever got closer to the bridge pin and stretched the string more. So even though the vibrating length is longer, the string was stretched enough to go sharp and cancel out the move of the lever.

Because the performance levers capture the string from the side, the bridge pin height doesn't change the pitch of the sharp. I've found that I can change the string stretch of the Performance Levers to one side or the other. There is a limit as to how much of this you can get away with and not have your lever job look really awkward, but it can help fine tune your lever job.

I have seen a number of references to "fine tuning" the levers in Mr. Thormahlens reply to my article. But I have yet to see any specifications that he (or any other harpmaker) commit themselves to. In my article, I suggested 14 cents from perfect intonation which is not just my goal, but a warranty to my customers.

Come on Dave, commit yourself to defined degree of accuracy.

One Last Thought

If you are still wondering why levers need to be tunable, consider the string placement factor which alters the stretch of the string. When you change a string it may change your lever intonation. One way this can happen is that lever regulation is where the string leaves the bridge pin to meet the tuning pin. This is altered by how many winds you may have on your tuning pin or how they are spaced. If one changes the direction of the string as it leaves the bridge pin toward the tuning pin the regulation will be off.

I'm sorry Dave, but that is total nonsense and you should know better, But then maybe you were absent the day your 10^th gradeGeometry teacher discussed circles and their tangent lines.* The only effective considerations are the vibrating lengths of the open string , the fretted string and necessary compensation for the increased tension of the lever.

Anything above the bridge pin or below the first contact of the string with the outer string rib is totally inconsequential.

If one changes the direction of the string as it leaves the bridge pin toward the tuning pin the regulation will be off. If the harp was regulated with all the strings angled toward the neck as they go from the bridge pin to the tuning pin, then all the strings rest at the bottom of the notch in the bridge pin. (this makes no sense whatsoever and is again in violation of well established principles of Plane Geometry.*) if it did it still wouldn't imply any change in the intonation of the sharpening lever If you change the string and inadvertently wind the string on the tuning pin so that the string now angles out and away from the neck, as it goes from the bridge pin to the tuning pin, the string will rest near the top of the slot in the bridge pin. The change in position of the string will cause the string to stretch more and throw off the intonation of the lever. This is minute, but that's all it takes to change the intonation. Whoa.

My first observation is that his argument is in direct violation of the mathematical laws of elementary geometry. I.e. Given a point (the node where the string enters the outer stringrib) and a circle (cross section of the bridge pin) two and only two lines can be drawn from that point tangent to the circle (One would go to the forward side of the bridge pin, and one to the back side) neither would in any way be dependent on how the loose end of the string is wound around the tuning pin.

I have to agree "whoa". This certainly reminds me of one of my former 9^th grade students trying to fake his way through a technical question without having the faintest idea about the subject. I'll tell you what I'd tell the student. "next time do your homework and quit trying to fake it." Also, you get the same grade! Furthermore, if this argument had any merit at all, which it doesn't, wouldn't it be far easier to rewind the string than to tune the sharpening lever. Oh, but I suppose, Dave, you never thought of that.

In my article I suggested that whenever possible go to the final authority on harps…..your harp…… and test what is being said. If your harp agrees, all well and good. So I went to a harp, ( I had to drill a hole near the center of the tuning pin of a 16 7/8 inch string to be able to wind it both ways. (This of course to check and see if Euclid and 2500 years of mathematicians had made a mistake) With windings toward the Harmonic curve, I found my lever to be about 6 cents sharp. Winding the string on the other way I found my lever to be a little over 5 cents sharp. Overall error, less than one cent which is clearly within experimental error.

Score

Euclid + 2500 years of mathematicians 1

Thormahlen 0

I think there are two very good reasons why levers need to be tunable. The first is as Paul Culotta wonders: the ability of harpmakers to put the lever in the right spot. Unless a harpmaker makes every part of the harp exactly the same every time, the geometry of the harps will vary a little. This inherent variability of the individual instrument necessitates a little fudge factor.

 Where did I wonder about harpmakers making consistent identical harps. I certainly didn't suggest any such thing in my article, I suggested careful meticulous placing after the harp has come to equilibrium with all the pressures it is subjected to. Now I'm beginning to wonder if you actually read my article.

. Of course to try to predetermine placement is out of the question. To even try to place levers before the harp has come to equilibrium from stresses of the strings or before the strings are fully stretched out, and all knots pulled tight and the harp maintains concert intonation for a reasonable length of time will be doomed to failure. The technique, once the harp is ready, is to determine the exact placement for the lever by some careful means (I have developed and refined my technique over many years for what I now call Woldsong frets which have NO tuning adjustment on them. I always have to be right the first time, but if I can do it so can any harpmaker.) then drill the placement holes and fix the lever in a totally rigid position. A sharpening lever is a fret. I can't imnagine anyone buying a guitar mandolin or even a balalaika with frets that vibrate themselves out of tune.

The other reason is in the changes in the amount that the strings are stretched by the levers. This probably changes over time. It's pretty easy to accidentally bump the bridge pins and have your intonation change.

Yes the strings do stretch over time, but this is astronomically greater as a result from being plucked by the harper over a period of time. If the string stretches evenly (which is not really going to be the case) its mass per unit length will remain the same and it will have no effect on the sharpening lever or anything else. Usually the string does not stretch evenly and intonation and tonal qualities deteriorate at which time it is time to replace the string, not try to correct it with tuning the sharpening lever.

As for bumping the bridge pins, I am shocked that Mr. Thormahlen has the temerity to insult his own patrons by blaming them when he freely admits playing hoaky games with the bridge pins on his harps to tune them when he wasn't even in the recommended range of the manufacturers specifications for installing them. I don't know what Dave pays for a bridge pin, but I should think he would gladly replace them than tune the levers of the harp. A bridge pin is (or should be) anchored immovable in a fixed drilled hole. Other than bending the pin (about a $0.35 item easily replaced)

To repeat, THERE IS NO JUSTIFI CATION WHATSOEVER FOR HAVING TUNABLE LEVERS EXCEPT FOR HARPMAKERS WHO EITHER CHOOSE NOT TO TAKE THE TIME OR WOULD NOT KNOW HOW TO INSTALL THEM ACCURATELY AND IN A RIGIDLY FIXED POSITION.

ONE LAST THOUGHT ON MY PART

It may seem that I have been rather critical of Mr. Thornahlen. I suspect that he is indeed a very good woodworker and builds beautiful instruments. I also believe that he has shown himself desperate to justify the maintenance of tunable levers since it seems obvious that he has not developed any technique and has never installed an untunable lever with acceptable accuracy. Indeed, he even admits in his attempted rebuttal that he is not consistent in installing levers within the tunable range of the manufactured levers he uses.

The Woldsong levers which I now refer to as frets, I install with NO tuning adjustment, and my warranty is as suggested in the above article +/- 14 cents at purchase of the instrument, and +/- 17 cents for as long as the customer has the instrument. I have been installing the Woldsong levers for 22 years now, and though in the early years I was not as accurate as I am now, if they were somewhat off when I originally installed them, they are still off by exactly the same amount. If they were perfect then, they still are. My frets have the characteristics of frets on any other instrument. They are installed accurately to begin with, and anchored in a permanent rigid trouble free manner. In 22 years and 4000 to 6000 levers later, I have never had a single complaint of their falling out and only two frets that even came loose.

Though they have something of the appearance of the grief ridden old fashion blade levers, the "modern" flip up levers have more in common with the old problem ridden Caswell and Wicher levers than do the Woldsong levers. The source of the problems with the old blade levers was that they were made to be tunable with a press fit slippy slidy shank that of course would wear loose and fall out. The modern flip up levers have a slippy slidy tuning adjustment that of course vibrates itself out of adjustment. (Mechanical Engineering 101…….Vibration will have its way)

Unfortunately, tunable levers are now so pervasive that I think Dave Thormahlen is by no means unique. Indeed, I doubt that there are more than five (and maybe only one) harpmakers who can accurately install levers without being able to tune them after the fact. This is a severe disservice to the very clientele we wish to address. I am sure most harpmakers want to give our patrons the very best we can. But that does not include inappropriate engineering for the wrong client even if it makes our job easier.