It's been a few days now, since I finished putting new felt on the bars.   Everything went well and I cut off the teeny bit that I left on each end because it hampered the "bounce back" of the bars. The new chord bar holder that I had ordered had a slight bit of something like rubber already in the top of it so I didn't use the rubber bands.
    I will attempt to cut a new A and E chord and put on the existing bars that I don't use. While folowing along with my grandson on the guitar, I see that those are the chords that will make things much better.
    Thanks to the great information I found here and some wonderful links, I've had such a good experience with this project.
                   After not touching the autoharp for a long time, I've found most of the abilty to play still alive and such a good feeling comes from playing it.