Do you make your own chanter reed for borderpipes? From ghb reeds or otherway? Good advice needed?
Cheers,
Mikko
Some makers, Ray Sloan for one, have their own design. Others modify Highland pipe reeds to suit their needs. The book, “More Power To Your Elbow” contains both Ray Sloan’s reed recipe and instructions on how to modify the Highland pipe reed for use in Border pipes. I dimly recall that there was a discussion about this earlier this year.
It was discussed in this thread.
I’ve carved GHB reeds into border reeds. So far it’s been trial and error but I’m starting to get more consistent results. There’s a delicate balance between too much pressure but with good intonation and good pressure but with skirls and bad intonation.
Cheers,
Aaron
Yep yep, but anybody have “Real experiment/ knowhow” when manipulate ghb reeds for borderpipes.(not just a good book recommendations..)
Cheers,
Mikko
Hi Mikko you might try experimenting by adjusting Pakistani GHB reeds which cost only £0.30 each here in the UK.
John S
I just fixed one Mc Phee reed, i’m" near" with this , but even it’s almost
in tune now, e note is so unstable (and abit flat.)very sensitive to pressure
…something do with wire bridle perhaps, , who knows
Those Paki reeds, from Hogoblin. co.uk or Thomann.de, or is there better source in europe somewhere?
I’ve been playing a MacPhee reed that I carved for the border chanter. It was a great but short lived reed (only a few months) in my GHB chanter. I’m currently whittling away at a Ross reed that has good potential.
I follow Jock Agnew’s instructions pretty close. I use a small file to do most of the thinning along the sides and then follow up with a Stanley knife and/or pen-knife for fine scraping. I don’t shave beyond a couple millimeters up to the lips. I do usually pinch the staple as part of making the reed easier and put a wire bridal just above the thread binding.
The main thing I try and do is get the aperture of the lips down to less than a millimeter (about half a millimeter). I also test it by sucking the reed at the staple to see how easily it squeals and for how much of a crow precedes the squeal.
Some people use manometers to check that the reed sounds at a good pressure. If your not interested in building such a thing there are dial manometers available. I know of one that fits in a GHB drone top but to use it on a border pipe you would probably have to take the tenor or bass drone out and put it in the stock.
I’ve run into problems with the E being sensitive and tending toward flatness too. I haven’t found the bridle to be the culprit but I wouldn’t rule it out. If anything I’ve had the best results by pinching the bridle but not so much that the reed skirls.
I hope that gives you some hints.
Cheers,
Aaron
i have been going through the same thing,reeding morrison reel pipes,ruined lots of reeds.think i have it now.you need to close the staple a bit with some pliers ,keeps the high hand from going too sharp.scrape down the sides of the reed first,then the face,and lips as needed.leave the reed a bit stiff, if you take them down too much,they start sqwealing.make sure the reed is airtight,small beed of glue up each side. borders are almost as hard to reed as uilleann pipes.ha!! not really.you can order a border reed from jim mcgillivarys website. good luck 
Well pipers! Narrow the reed head “Vee” by sanding the side edges. From the angle at the top of the reed to start, and slowly work it and test it as you go. You may have too much reed area vibrating the E, after you get through shaving the reed blades down to that paper thin state ( in contrast to the GHB blades you stared with). That is why the E on the chanter is too flat in pitch.
I tie on a copper (USA 20 gauge) wire at the base as well, before I start shaving the blades, so I can control the lips of the reed and close them down, if needed. It also protects the wrap from shaving and sanding.
My 1925 Robertson " Boy Scout " set just takes the “standard” 1970s GHB reed, with the blades shaved down, but the overall reed head dimensions stay the same. I have noticed that some of the modern makers have diverged from this, and require: A. a smaller reed head, B. a cut down, shortened,(sawed off at the open end) staple, and (C.) a combination of (A.) and (B.). I have done the letter (C.) to reed a Nigel Richards chanter, I used to own, if that is any help to you. Buy more GHB reeds and Good Luck!
Sean Folsom
I get my Pakistani reeds from FCN.
http://www.fcnmusic.co.uk/branddetails.asp?section=1
I can’t find the reeds on the site and I order through a music shop called Forsyth’s in Manchester. The company is notoriously badly organised and orders can take a while. The reeds are sold in packs of 12 and the last 50 I ordered were well made and with a small amount of adjustment a good proportion worked in my Warnock GHB chanter (though quieter than Kosher reeds).
If you can’t source them in Finland Mikko let me know and I’ll order you some here and post them to you.
While I’m here I recently stumbled on a way of reviving and adjusting GHB reeds that may or may not be useful for BPs.
It’s not for the faint hearted but it does work.
I had a good reed that started to go squigy on low A; now usually when this happens I just discard the reed and start with a new one but this time I decided to try something radical, I boiled the reed in a Kettle!
The result was to open the lips of the reed making it very hard indeed. I returning the reed to the boiling water removed it and squeezed the tips of the lips together. The result was a nice crow at an appropriate pressure and the reed is now back in service.
I dug out as many dead reeds as I could and a good percentage responded favourably to the treatment.
This might be a good way of getting the lips of your BP reeds close together. The process is reversible so if you shut the reed down to much just pop it back in the kettle and try again until you get the desired result.
A little bit of experience is better than a barrel full of knowledge
John S
Hi, John:
Do you just dunk them for a bit or do you boil them whole (and what happens to the binding) and for how long?
With best regards
Steve Mack
Yes Steve I dropped them in Kettle and the bindings of the Warnock reeds I used are fine though I might give them a coat of nail varnish to stabilise them. After I’d boiled them (just for as long as it took the Kettle to switch itself of) I adjusted them bye just immersing the blades in the hot water. I was able to resurrect some reeds that just whistled and were very closed up by immersion and squeezing the lower sides of the reed to open it up and then closing the lips by immersing only the end of the reed and squeezing the tip. Some of these reeds needed a small amount (0.5mm) removed from the tip to get a good crow.
I use scissors to trim the tips, which I find far easier and just as good using a knife.
This technique relies on the fact that cane with more than 15% water content undergoes a transition to a reversible plastic state at 50 degrees C so any mechanical adjustments are retained when the reed drops back below this temperature. I dipped the reeds in the hot water for some time (10 sec) so that I had enough time to effect the changes before the reed temperature dropped.
Good luck
John S