there are many items you can use to close the gap in a reed slot, a penny, a chrome hex socket, a spoon handle, the object of this job is to force a smooth object carefully down the reed slot repeatedly to effectively squeeze the soft brass of the reed plate closing the gap between the reed and plate (the red area in the diagram) this is a task that requires a feel and judging this is only gained by experience and that comes from practice on old or cheap reed combs, so when you fell confident of your skills you can begin to get those favorit harps a howlin just as they should.

think of this skill akin to pushing a penny to the edge of a table blindfolded, too far and the penny will fall to the floor, not enough and you may not reach the edge

when embossing the reed plate the area in red is the target area that we wish to draw in closer to the reed by pushing the brass to close the gap fig 1 shows the before and fig 2 shows the after,

constant plinking with the plinking tool will bring back the freedom of the reed when you have found the sweet spot

 this job is by far the hardest to carry out correctly, when you emboss you may need to re gap the reed tip