A friend of mine recently purchased a beautiful Thormahlen harp, but the pins are awfully sensitive. It only takes the slightest motion to make the pins turn, and it is frustrating to try and tune accurately while being so careful. Also, in the "small" octave (the one just below middle C) the pins will slip down once they have been tuned up, unless you yank the tuning key away quickly. Thormahlens are great harps, and I don't think it is characteristic of the brand, but rather a problem with the pins. Anyone have any advice on how to make the pins stick more? We harpists are used to dealing with obstinante pins, but usually they stick too much! This is also the time in Florida with the greatest humidity, so I can't wait to see what the pins will be like in winter...
I covet Thormahlen harps! I would recommend contacting Sharon Thormahlen directly and asking what she thinks. Sharon's very nice, and I'm sure she'd have great advice. She can be reached through their website (www.thorharp.com).
Tuning pins is one of the reasons (aside from great tone) I'm seriously considering investing in a Dusty Strings. They use threaded (zither-style) pins that grab in a screw-like fashion to allow fine-tuning and generally hold tuning well (humidity permitting).
But I'm in the indecisive stage of harplust, so I have a new passion each week. I just can't decide!
It's not that uncommon for new lever harps to have loose pins, and it's usually quite easy to fix. What you need to do is push in firmly with the tuning key and kind of wiggle it back and forth. You should immediately feel it getting tighter. When it's reasonably tight, then tune it to pitch, and if you need to go flatter to get it to pitch, keep pushing in as you turn it do as not to loosen it again. I would guess this is a very minor and easily fixed problem but of course without seeing the harp I can't guarantee anything. If this doesn't work someone will probably need to take a mallet to the offending pins. Here's a link with detailed advice on how to do this:
If you are nervous about doing this yourself, and the maker is far away, it might be best to contact a harp technician in your area for help. Good luck!
Thank you both for the advice - I'll see if the two of us can't work on her pins, though first the best thing would be to contact Thormahlen and ask what they recommend doing to their harp.
I had tihs problem on one of tuning pins on my harp. A harp building friend recommend removing the offening pin, putting a very thin piece of shaved wood in the hole, and replacing the pin. That did the trick.
But by all means contact Sharon if you can, she is always very helpful
Hi folks, just thought I'd finally chime in on this. In our "Owner's Manual" at www.thorharp.com/pages/ownersmanual.htm, it talks about this problem exactly. There are a couple of reasons that this can happen.
One is if the humidity gets too low, the holes where the tuning pins go through the harp dry out and get bigger. The tuning pin which is tapered needs to be shoved in a little to fill the larger space. In order to do that, you must detune the harp about 1/2 to a whole turn to avoid breaking the string and then while tuning it back up to pitch, push it in. It's a twist and push motion. If you hold your left hand where the neck and pillar come together you can brace the harp giving it some resisitence.
Another reason that this can happen is the angle of the string to the neck. If the string angles towards the neck from the tuning pin, it could be putting back pressure on the tuning pin and pushing it out of the hole. This is more likely to happen in the low bass wires. The remedy here is to detune the string and stretch out the windings so they run straight up and down instead of at an angle. If there aren't enough windings, you probably have to put on a new string. Cut your string about 2" longer than the string length you need to allow for the extra windings.
If your harp is working fine, don't change the angle of your strings by spreading out the windings even if you think it looks wrong because it may change the regulation of your lever. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Just as an aside, there are pros and cons for both the threaded tuning pins and the tapered tuning pins. One is not necessarily better than the other. But that's another story.
Sharon Thormahlen
Thormahlen Harps
Harp pins
Harp pins
A friend of mine recently purchased a beautiful Thormahlen harp, but the pins are awfully sensitive. It only takes the slightest motion to make the pins turn, and it is frustrating to try and tune accurately while being so careful. Also, in the "small" octave (the one just below middle C) the pins will slip down once they have been tuned up, unless you yank the tuning key away quickly. Thormahlens are great harps, and I don't think it is characteristic of the brand, but rather a problem with the pins. Anyone have any advice on how to make the pins stick more? We harpists are used to dealing with obstinante pins, but usually they stick too much! This is also the time in Florida with the greatest humidity, so I can't wait to see what the pins will be like in winter...
Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
Lynnsey
# Posted on August 30th 2004 by violynnsey
Re: Harp pins
I covet Thormahlen harps! I would recommend contacting Sharon Thormahlen directly and asking what she thinks. Sharon's very nice, and I'm sure she'd have great advice. She can be reached through their website (www.thorharp.com).
Tuning pins is one of the reasons (aside from great tone) I'm seriously considering investing in a Dusty Strings. They use threaded (zither-style) pins that grab in a screw-like fashion to allow fine-tuning and generally hold tuning well (humidity permitting).
But I'm in the indecisive stage of harplust, so I have a new passion each week. I just can't decide!
# Posted on August 30th 2004 by pakooper
Re: Harp pins
It's not that uncommon for new lever harps to have loose pins, and it's usually quite easy to fix. What you need to do is push in firmly with the tuning key and kind of wiggle it back and forth. You should immediately feel it getting tighter. When it's reasonably tight, then tune it to pitch, and if you need to go flatter to get it to pitch, keep pushing in as you turn it do as not to loosen it again. I would guess this is a very minor and easily fixed problem but of course without seeing the harp I can't guarantee anything. If this doesn't work someone will probably need to take a mallet to the offending pins. Here's a link with detailed advice on how to do this:
http://traditionalharps.com/Harp911SlippingPins.html
If you are nervous about doing this yourself, and the maker is far away, it might be best to contact a harp technician in your area for help. Good luck!
# Posted on August 30th 2004 by ostrichfeathers
Re: Harp pins
Thank you both for the advice - I'll see if the two of us can't work on her pins, though first the best thing would be to contact Thormahlen and ask what they recommend doing to their harp.
# Posted on August 30th 2004 by violynnsey
Re: Harp pins
I had tihs problem on one of tuning pins on my harp. A harp building friend recommend removing the offening pin, putting a very thin piece of shaved wood in the hole, and replacing the pin. That did the trick.
But by all means contact Sharon if you can, she is always very helpful
# Posted on August 31st 2004 by Ptollemy
Re: Harp pins
I agree with the pushing/knocking them in method as described by ostrichfeathers. Well, it worked for me anyway.
The harpcolumn.com message board is good for these kinds of questions too.
Good luck.
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by SL*
Re: Harp pins
Hi folks, just thought I'd finally chime in on this. In our "Owner's Manual" at www.thorharp.com/pages/ownersmanual.htm, it talks about this problem exactly. There are a couple of reasons that this can happen.
One is if the humidity gets too low, the holes where the tuning pins go through the harp dry out and get bigger. The tuning pin which is tapered needs to be shoved in a little to fill the larger space. In order to do that, you must detune the harp about 1/2 to a whole turn to avoid breaking the string and then while tuning it back up to pitch, push it in. It's a twist and push motion. If you hold your left hand where the neck and pillar come together you can brace the harp giving it some resisitence.
Another reason that this can happen is the angle of the string to the neck. If the string angles towards the neck from the tuning pin, it could be putting back pressure on the tuning pin and pushing it out of the hole. This is more likely to happen in the low bass wires. The remedy here is to detune the string and stretch out the windings so they run straight up and down instead of at an angle. If there aren't enough windings, you probably have to put on a new string. Cut your string about 2" longer than the string length you need to allow for the extra windings.
If your harp is working fine, don't change the angle of your strings by spreading out the windings even if you think it looks wrong because it may change the regulation of your lever. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Just as an aside, there are pros and cons for both the threaded tuning pins and the tapered tuning pins. One is not necessarily better than the other. But that's another story.
Sharon Thormahlen
Thormahlen Harps
# Posted on September 21st 2007 by thorharp