About Dusty Strings harps

Having made over 8,000 harps since 1984, we get a lot of feedback from players. Most of it has to do with how much they enjoy the sound and the quality of workmanship in their instrument. We describe here the features we believe contribute to that general perception of quality. We’d also like to detail some of the fine points that demonstrate our thoughtful, involved approach to designing harps that perform well.

Contents

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• Sound
• Woods
• Radiused neck joint
• String spacing and tension
• Sharping levers
• Strings
• Tuning pins
• Tuning wrenches
• Finish
• Warranty

Sound

When we first began designing harps in 1984, our testing led us to a combination of soundbox and soundboard construction and string design that gave a particularly bright, crisp, and balanced sound. We liked it a lot, thought it would serve a wide variety of playing styles well, and have worked ever since to maintain and develop that sound. It has become a recognized characteristic of Dusty Strings harps. Watch and listen to Dusty Strings harps. (Read player comments about our harps.)

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Woods

Soundboards

The laminated soundboards we use on the Allegro, Crescendo, and Ravenna models are made of the highest quality birch plywood imported from Finland. In addition to being time efficient for us to use in building, this material provides a nice, even sound, an attractive look, and an inherent strength and stability.

Solid wood soundboards, which we use on all our other models, typically give more resonance, volume, and clarity than a laminated soundboard can. In addition, we do something unique with our solid wood soundboards to gain the sound we’re after.

Early in our development process, we conducted “blind” experiments with a panel of harp players and a series of test harps with different tone woods and soundboard thicknesses. The players chose Honduras mahogany for its resonance and clarity in the mid and treble ranges, but preferred spruce for its warm, “fat” sound in the bass. If we were bound by the tradition of using a single tone wood, this would have presented a dilemma. Re-thinking the traditional approach, we wondered why we couldn’t simply use each wood where it produced the best results.

So we created a two-part soundboard, loved the results, and determined that for our larger harps we would use spruce in the bottom third of the range and mahogany in the top two thirds. We overlaid the tone wood with a thin veneer of book-matched figured hardwood for strength and beauty. We believe this approach has given us the best of both woods.

Wood choice

We make our harps out of five species of hardwoods: walnut, maple, bubinga and koa. (Due to supply problems, we no longer offer Lyptus harps.) Because these woods cover a nice spectrum of tonal as well as visual color, deciding which one you want for your harp can be a challenge.

There are three basic factors to balance in choosing wood: look, cost, and sound. The first two are fairly straightforward, but sound can be harder to pin down if you aren’t in a position to play and compare the woods first-hand. They all sound good, but which is “best” is purely a matter of personal taste.

Each type of wood makes its own distinct contribution to the overall sound of the harp. In general, the following characteristics are associated with each wood:

• Sapele – A golden, red-brown color, often exhibiting a vivid, ribbon pattern to the grain, with a sound that is robust, smooth, and articulate.
• Walnut—typically described as soft and warm, and somewhat mellow.
• Maple—crisp and clean, very articulate and well defined, with lots of punch and projection.
• Bubinga—rich and full bodied, with complex, big, resonant bass tones and sparkly, bell-like treble and mid range.
• Koa—deep, solid, clear, a very attractive sound.

The Allegro 26 and Crescendo 32 harps are crafted from solid sapele, with Finland birch laminate soundboards.

Even with these distinctions, all of our harps fall within the brighter end of the tonal spectrum as compared to harps in general.

You can see photos of some of our harp models made from these woods on our harp wood photos page.

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Radiused neck joint

In our initial work designing harps, we devised a radical new neck joint—the place where the harmonic curve (the curved section with the tuning pins) joins the soundbox. In this radiused or curved joint, the neck is held onto the top of the soundbox by string tension rather than bolts or screws. A locator pin, wrapped in a cushioning sleeve, fits in a slot and prevents sideways movement but allows longitudinal rotation. That way the neck can flex under the tension introduced when the harp is strung (more than 1,000 pounds!) without compromising the strength and tightness of the joint between the neck and soundbox.

We also believe this radiused joint functions as a shock absorber, helping to dissipate the force of impact from minor bumps or falls that might otherwise cause major damage. And, should damage occur, it’s easier to separate the large sections of the harp and repair or replace only the necessary portion.

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String spacing and tension

String spacing on our harps is comparable to concert harp spacing, with approximately 1/2" between strings. The string tension is even and moderate throughout. Using lighter tension than a pedal harp, we can build very responsive instruments that are typically less strenuous to play.

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Sharping levers

For smooth operation and virtually undiminished tone, we carefully install Loveland sharping levers on all of our harps. These levers have brass bases and black polycarbonate/Delrin cam handles. We add a subtle touch of red and blue to color-code the C and F levers for easy identification (see photo in next section).

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Strings

Strings are such an important part of how a harp functions and sounds that we focus a great deal of attention on them. We go into some detail here to explain why.

Because we want to maintain consistently high quality strings on our harps, we designed and built our own string winding machinery. We go to great lengths to find the best materials available. When we wind strings, we work hard to achieve a very even diameter for two important reasons:

1. Strings that are consistently cylindrical along their vibrating length have a more pure and sweet tone than strings that are not.
2. There is a delicate interplay between string diameter and sharping lever function. This interplay has two important factors:
   
   • The Loveland sharping lever system has 17 sizes of cams, or handles, each sized to work optimally on a narrow range of string diameters. If cam and string are matched properly, the tone of the sharped string is not significantly different from that of the open string. If a string of too-small diameter is used, the sharped tone can be dull and fuzzy. If the string is too large, the cam could crack.
   • Accurate regulation, or setting of the sharping lever to achieve a precise half-step, is lost when strings of significantly different diameters are used to replace ones that have broken.

To support our customers with strings that maintain proper tone and sharping lever regulation, we have a strict diameter tolerance of plus or minus .002" over the length of our wrapped strings.

We also wind our nylon wrapped strings so that the wrap ends midway between the sharping lever contact point and the bridge pin (see photo). We feel this gives the wound strings a cleaner sound and a professional look and enhances their longevity. We’ve seen that wraps can split open where they travel around the bridge pin, requiring extra tension to pull the split up over the pin. This can cause wrap or core failure, either of which means the string needs to be replaced.

String composition

• Mid and upper ranges: nylon monofilament (all models)
• Lower mid range: nylon wrapped with nylon (all models)
• Bass strings: phosphor bronze wire wrapped with nylon (32- and 36-string harps)
• Bass strings (Ravenna 34 only): Steel core, wire wrapped

Our goal in designing and producing strings has been to create a particularly even tonal progression all the way down the range of each harp. In other words, there is little difference in tonal quality from one type of string to the next.

We include a string chart with each harp showing the string gauges and recommended tuning for that harp. We also mount another small string chart discreetly in the soundbox as a permanent record of the string set.

Replacement strings

If your dealer doesn’t stock replacement harp strings, you may order them directly from Dusty Strings (see our harp accessories page).

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Tuning pins

Harps have traditionally used tapered friction pins for tuning. These are tightly pressed into a tapered hole in the harp neck, and can work loose due to changes in temperature or humidity, getting bumped in transport, or general day-to-day use. When a tuning pin become loose, its string won’t hold pitch until the pin is reset, which can take a fair amount of hand strength.

In 1997 we designed a new type of pin to eliminate the occasional need to reset pins. These threaded tuning pins are grooved with a very fine screw thread, which is hidden inside the harp neck. When the pins are pressed into precisely sized holes, these threads create friction that securely holds the strings’ pitch. Another benefit of these pins is that they all line up beautifully when you look down the length of the neck, a nice bonus for those of us who appreciate small details in instrument setup.

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Tuning wrenches

We make all of our tuning wrenches with an eight-point star tip (rather than a square tip), which allows you to seat the wrench on the square end of the tuning pin in less than one-eighth of a turn and makes the process just a little faster and easier. We’ve engineered the tip to be .004" larger than the pin, large enough to seat easily but tight enough to prevent tuning pin wear. The FH26 FH32, FH36B, and FH36S harps come with our ergonomically shaped “custom” wrench; all other models include a T-handle wrench. Both wrenches are also sold separately (see our harp accessories page).

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Finish

For long-lasting protection and beauty, each instrument receives multiple applications of clear lacquer, allowing the true color and character of the wood to shine through.

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Warranty

All our instruments are warranted against defects in materials and workmanship to the original owner for five years from date of purchase, with the exception of the Ravenna 26 and Ravenna 34 which carry a two-year warranty. If there is a problem that is covered under the warranty, we will either repair or replace the instrument at no charge. Shipping costs to and from Dusty Strings are the responsibility of the owner.

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HARP LINKS
Models: Ravenna 26 | Ravenna 34 | Allegro 26 | Crescendo 32 | FH26 | FH26 Double-Strung | FH32 | FH36B | FH36S
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