04/29/2025
Guitarists know that solid wood instruments change as they encounter seasonal temperature and humidity fluctuations, they drift. It is a fact of life. The woods flex and move. The harmonium is no different from the guitar and perhaps is even more susceptable to drift. It is built of a combination of hard and soft woods that drift as they go through climatic changes. This drift is something you need to know about and prepare for when you buy a harmonium. When I was preparing to buy a mine from Old Dehli Music Co., I read every article I could find and watched every video I could about harmonium maintenance, most of which were from old Dehli themselves, oddly enough. I can't say enough about the information they offer. Not only did it prepare me for ownership and doing my own maintenance, it also made me fascinated with the instrument! If you are unfamiliar with the harmonium you can start with my review of my Bhava studio harmonium that is HERE. All my research has served me well as we have come out of the first yearly seasonal cycle for my harmonium, with winter ending and spring beginning. Some keys got sticky and began to rub and a reed began to buzz. Time to get to work!
Courtesy Old Dehli Co.
In this present case I first identified the keys involved by walking through the entire keyboard from C2 at the bottom to F5 at the top of the keyboard, checking both wihte and black keys. C2 itself was sticking, along with the adjacent C# and D, so there would be work on all three. I could see that there was no space between the front ends of the C and D keys, so I’d need to find out why. Then, up near the top of the keyboard, C5, D5, and E5 were rubbing but the sharps were clear, and there were visible clearance issues showing up between the keys there as well.
First, I removed the trim strip/key retaining bar across the fulcrum point of the keys to get access to the keys. As shown on Nic Dillon’s videos, the return spring for a key needs to be moved to the side before that key can be removed. Looking at the keys I could see the tiniest amount of warpage on one of them, making it come into contact with the next key. I removed the keys one at a time and began working them on a sheet of light/medium sandpaper on a flat surface, starting at the front of each key. I soon discovered that this was not enough, as the key was slightly bowed from the front to the back end where there is a fork-shaped hole that accepts a post on the key bed. The warp was centered on the middle and made both the front and back move to one side, causing the post to rub within the fork and the front to rub against the next key as well. I ripped off a little piece of sandpaper and gently relieved the inside portion of the fork where it was rubbing. After a couple of gentle adjustments and checks, the stickiness and rubbing at the back stopped and the front had a little clearance.
I repeated the diagnosis and adjustment process on the upper keys and worked out the rubbing up there as well. On that group, the fulcrum hole in the D5 key had shrunk a little, making replacing it after working on it difficult. The key was also "griping" against that center post, adding a little noise. I held a drill bit the size of the hole in my fingers and gently relieved the hole by sliding the bit back and forth in the hole with slight side pressure. I took it slowly, test fitting the key, until it no longer rubbed.
Courtesy Old Dehli Co.
Then, finally, there was a buzzy, quiet reed, C#2 in the Male voice, to consider. I removed the key slip, that little bar in front of and below the keys, loosened the two screws that hold down the key bed/reed frame and removed it, and then tilted it up, as seen in the pic above. The reed in question was the second from the bottom in the smaller, upper chamber. The technique here is to remove the reed’s frame, unscrewing its screws and breaking it free from the glue surrounding it. Then you simply screw it back down. When the wood shifts, it distorts this frame. Breaking it free from the glue restores its symmetry. Once I got things squared away I buttoned up the harmonium and played with it for a while, having made it fully functional once again.
A few days later I discovered that all the rub wasn't quite gone in those upper octave keys, so I went at it again. This time I paid a bit more attention to the geometry of the keys and where exactly the griping was happenening. After gentle relieving, there was still rub going on up front and C5 had a tendency to occasionally grab and pull down C#5. Considering the bows in the keys and the location of the posts they rode on, I did a tiny bit of straightening on the posts and the keys all quit griping. Done!
I have to say that it is a satisfying feeling when you can do your own maintenance. Any time that you spend with the hood up contribues to your understanding and appreciation of the mechanisms inside, and their intricacy.
If you are interested in all of this, here are a couple of YouTube videos that show you how it is done:
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