Wax on Reed plate. Avoid valve sticking

[Ed McCullough]

Vern Smith used to advocate waxing the Reed plate to avoid valve sticking. What kind of wax do you guys and gals recommend?

[brorat]

Vern Smith used to advocate waxing the Reed plate to avoid valve sticking. What kind of wax do you guys and gals recommend?

I've never done that, Ed, so I don't have a suggestion for wax.  In my five years of playing multiple harmonicas, my valves only stick if I don't warm the harp.  Warming is much simpler than waxing the plates.

[Gnarly He Man]

Floor wax (with carnuba).
I tried it, but it’s been a while.
What Brorat sez 

[wolfman]

  I resemble those remarks.

   Roman

[Age]

I tried that wax trick once, and it kinda worked but as I recall, it was a pain in the cheeks applying the stuff without damaging the valves. Prolly a good thing to do when you replace all the outside blow-reed valves. I think the principle may be that condensation is less likely to show up on a waxy surface than on bare metal? Next time I do an outside valve replacement, I'll definitely do it again. 

[Danny G]

Vern used floor wax (like Gary said) but wiped it off as soon as it started to dry

[Age]

Yeah, but I don't even know where to get "floor wax" anymore.

[Danny G]

Amazon has it even with with Carnauba
PS I don't use it

[Age]

Me neether. I been gettin' away with the old "Fedor's rub trick" for years. It works on everything 'cept a CX (which I never play anyway 😁)

[Ed McCullough]

It was back in 2006 that Vern Smith gave the advice about using the floor wax on the Reed plate. I did try that. I had difficulty getting the wax onto the reed plate, spreading it thinly and worried immensely about Wrecking the valve. I gave up on it.

[Ed McCullough]

I took the cover off one side of the harmonica so I could look at the valves. The sticking valves were not touching the Reed plate. Surprise, surprise! I thought the two layers of the valve must be sticking together. I put a slight Arch into the top layer of the valve, and that solved the problem.
-. You can Arch the top layer by putting a thin wire, such as a small paper clip between the layers, and then pushing down on the top layer where are the top layer is over the paper clip. I put the arch close to the end all the top layer.
-. I'm sure this won't solve all the sticking problems, but it solved my problem today.