(please note - to find the products in my store, scroll down below this article)

To my valued customers - I am extending the estimate of the time it takes to build harmonicas due to high demand and other factors. It could take at least 6 months to ship an order and could take longer. A good estimate at this point would be 6 - 9 months... My goal is to always do the best I can with an order... It is a slow process, folks...

Until further notice, I cannot accept orders from the UK (United Kingdom) or the nations that are in the EU (European Union). The new regulations regarding collecting and reporting VAT add time consuming complications to the shipping process that make small business owners into either tax collectors or criminals. I am not willing to join either of those two groups. I am sorry to report this.

I have decided to simplify my line of harmonicas to focus on what I believe to be the ideal harmonica:

The simplest design with the absolute minimum number of parts:

• 2 reed plates, 3 reed plate screws, 2 cover plates, 1 or 2 sets of cover plate screws, one comb.
• Pozidrive over plate screws and the reed plate screws that use the same screwdriver.
• An acrylic comb that is polished to make it super smooth tand easy to clean.
• Stainless steel cover plates that are strong and crush resistant.
• All surfaces polished to make them smooth to the hand as well as your mouth.
• An exposed front edge of the reed plates to give you a direct connection to your lips of the vibrations of the reeds for a more intimate connection to the instrument.

This combination of parts allows you to easily clean the harmonica – you can even rinse it out with tap water or mild soap solution without even taking the harmonica apart – as long as you rinse thoroughly and tap out excess water and allow it to sit out in the open to dry, there is no way you can damage the harmonica.

If you have special requests for Thunderbird harmonicas, or cover plate substitutions like Rocket, Rocket Amp, or classic Marine Band 1896, contact me and we can discuss options.

I’ve been building custom harmonicas since 1994. I simply cannot put in as many hours per week as I used to in years past painstakingly building custom harmonicas. It is very demanding work to maintain the level of quality I insist on shipping out.

I have one main goal when I work on a harmonica and that is to keep adjusting it until I'm sure I got it right and no more minor adjustments are needed. This can mean countless minor adjustments followed by time sitting on a shelf to allow the reeds to react to the changes.

I have basic formulas that I follow, but there are always X factors that take special attention to make a set of reed plates feel alive, super responsive, and balanced. No two sets of reed plates are identical - they all need different levels of attention.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know and to all of you out there who have supported my efforts over the years, thank you very much and I am going to stay in this game for many more years!

Richard Sleigh

Updated July 9th, 2026