Cuts off.. what’s this mean? Is the reed too light? If I take the reed out and very very gently suck air I can get the guill to start vibrating, but when I plug it in and try to play at playing pressure.. nothing! Reed is made of straight cane.
Re-spring the tongue. Don’t be shy-give it a good pull. Ideally you want a “ski-tip” curve to the tongue.
Well magroibin, it appears your advice did the trick… It’s sounding, and playing with pressure, only problem is, it’s tuning is off, (not saying that is your fault) it’s pitched right on at Eb with the tuning slide almost off, not sure how to fix that one.
If the reed is sharp AFTER springing the tongue up, it means it must have been even sharper before because opening the tongue invariably means flattening the pitch of the reed. Put some more weight onto the tongue near the tip by applying a blob of wax or whatever you have handy, this should also stabilize the tone and add a bit of volume.
I’ll give it a shot Michael thanks.