Now that “The Rains” have come to portland I thought I would try making some more reeds. I am still a beginner at this but have made about 30 reeds experimenting with different cane and different techniques. But one thing that I have found is that I tend to crack every California cane slip that I work on. I have some medir that I got from NPU and I can work it well and almost never cracks. The California cane was from the Sampson’s and also some from Ted Andersen.
The CA cane seems to be lighter and dryer than the medir. Gouging the Medir is a smooth easy process. The CA cane is jerky and hard to push through. The Medir takes a long time to sand in the final scrape where the CA goes quickly.
And then in the final winding, scraping, and/or bridle placement. The medir almost never cracks while I crack more than half of the CA cane.
So… do I need to use a much lighter hand with the CA cane. Or, while I have not tried it, should I be soaking the slips in water before I work on them?
I have made a handful of good playing reeds with the medir and NONE on the CA. Since so many say the CA cane is superior AND my current Brad Angus made CA cane reed is very good… I would like to make one.
BTW being retired AND it being the rainy season mean more pipe playing, more reed making, and more participation on C&F
Try the wet method with the California cane and see if it improves your results.
Also, make sure that your gouge/knife is razor sharp. This reduces the force you’ll have to apply and so reduce the risk of cracking.
Finally, I found that the commonly used shooting board caused the tails of the slip to break. After seeing Benedict Koehler make a reed, I rigged up a shooting board like the one he uses. You can see it in the following clip:
thanks… I will try the wet method and sharpen my gouge. As to Koehlers method. I have watched his videos on NPU a couple times… his method is so different than most others. It looks a lot more skill dependent than other methods. I wonder if he developed it on his own or is his method closer to historical methods?
I am currently making reeds with Californian Cane… and I don’t usually use a ‘wet’ method when wrapping the heads on… I’ve made about 20 today and none have cracked ( passed the end of the binding that is)… so what do I do;
I start to wrap gently by running the thread up to my finish line using very light pressure… leave it like that for a minute then un wrap and commence again using slightly more tension on the thread… repeat this four or five times and each time pull just that bit harder on the thread untill the corners of your reed head just close…
Selection of cane is also important and Californian cane can be quite variable… some can be brittle and too hard to gouge at the same time.
yeah,californian cane splitting on tying up.it is more friable than other cane but is worth persevering with as it speaks much sooner.i use the “half wet” method where you just soak the tails so you do not have to wait for the head to dry out and possibly deform in the process.i also “cross hatch” the tails with a stanley blade to give the cane more malleability in tying on and use a light pressure in tying up.the cross hatching is something i picked up from a dave williams reed after i had deconstructed it and i thought,yes of course,so obvious it works along with the wetting of the tails,no more splitting headaches!!!allan.
It important not to use V shaped tails but to make them wine-bottle shaped. I wet the tails and tie in lightly first; unwrap and increase tension in re-wrapping and allow to dry overnight. The reed may or may not be closed at the sides after the second wrap. I untie the head after it has dried and re-wrap. The cane has almost formed around the staple and cracking is minimal. A crack that doesn’t go much beyond the wrap and is not in the area of the scrape should work fine. I put CA glue into the cracks coming from under the wrap to stabilize them. More care is required than with Spanish cane, but the tone is worth the effort. I like what Geoff says as well.
Welcome to pipering. A really nice reed for a D set by Benedict Koehler cracked. Split down the length of the reed. Untouched. No manipulation whatsoever. Not sure what cane he is using. Possibly CA cane. My point is…even the best reeds by the best reedmakers can crack without warning or manipulation. That is just the way it is. So, don’t give up!!
I’ve found it very cracky too but when I did finally make a working reed it was worth it. You just have to be a bit more careful with it.
A few tips
if you don’t want to use water, then cane is somewhat thermosetting. Heat the staple when the cane is tied on under a little pressure, and it will begin to form to the desired shape. Leave to cool, retie, reheat, repeat at least 5 times. This is for impatient folk who can’t wait overnight and retie each morning as I think Ben does.
Also taking the bark off the portion of slip that will be under the binding helps. Jim Carroll tip there.
In my experience the shape of the tails also affects the octave relationship, so if you are going for wine bottle shaped (as I do too) then you may need to increase the volume of the staple.
That brings me back to that silly talk about chanters and rolled staples. I think rolling staples is more of a reedmaker than pipemaker thing; I reckon I could reed just about any chanter up with tube, but rolling my own staples gives me control over another variable, which as a reedmaker is a large bonus.
All Hunter chanters will reed up with tube, but not all reedmakers choose to use it.
I use Cali cane. 99.9% of the time, I have no cracking issues. I also use an entirely wet method (that is very diff. from Fury’s). If I didn’t make reeds the way I do, I would be going through 2xs as much cane.
If I may, my observations on Cali cane;
I’ve made my best chanter reeds with Cali cane supplied by Ted. For me it gives the best tone. Sure, it can be tricky to work with, I tie up slowly several times, slightly increasing the pressure until closed. Wine bottle shape works for me.
I always got a kick out of Antony Baines quote on reed cane; “a short lived vegetable matter of merciless capriciousness, which, when it behaves, are wrought perhaps the most tender and expressive sounds in all wind music.”
if you don’t want to use water, then cane is somewhat thermosetting.
Sam is absolutely correct and this forum would be better served if certain people did not try to ‘score points’ or ‘boost their number of posts score’ by adding silly comments to the thread. I have seen several NSP makers and also a UP maker use this technique time and time again. Not Sam in this case but nice to know he knows of this technique. It is also used by woodwind reed makers
In my early days at reed making I used a method that was given to me ( by I cannot remember who),which involved heat… it goes like this:-
The reeds were bound with Hemp or Flax thread that was coated in Pitch , It was not too important to bind very tightly because the next stage was to coat the binding with Shelac (in the form of French Polish) and set fire to it, holding the reed by the head and turning it so that the heat of the flames of the burning alcohol warmed the Pitch evenly… of course holding the reed between finger and thumb prevented the cane from catching fire (most times) but things would get a little warm.
When the flames had gone out the next stage was to roll the reed between your palms to amalgamate the threads of the binding and the softened Pitch.
The result was a very hard and tight binding which, perhaps due to its rigidity, was thought to lessen the possible vibration damping effect of a softer type of binding.
I cannot remember when or why I stopped using this method and if I noticed any tonal différences… I certainly did not encounter much Cracking even when using the Boat shaped tails.
I haven’t thought of the heat-setting process contributing to prevention of cracking, but David Daye’s wet method employs using heat to accelerate the setting process, during which cracking can occur, and I’ve had it happen to me. I use Garcia, which is from Argentina. Tough stuff, and it works well, but I’ve had some of it crack here and there. I’m not sure that it matters on the kind of cane, but I do a few things to mitigate cracking:
–Tone Chamber
–Wine bottle shape
–Chamfer the tails
If something cracks, I just disassemble and get a new slip. No biggie.
Thanks for the suggestions. My problem happens in a couple of places. One is when i wind it on the staple. I do wet the tails a bit and do a light wrap followed by a final tight one. But my tails are triangular with a bit of sanding the corners. I bet boat tailing would help with cracking there and maybe an extra wrapping stage. I think i will stay away from the flame techniques.
The other problem is when i am doing the scrape. Usually when i am sanding the pressure of my finger will collapse the cane with a crack. I think the cure for that is to be more light handed.
I tried soaking the entire slip several times during the whole process. Well i could tell that i was no where near cracking with that but… When i bound the head prior to winding on the staple. The lips did not maintain any gap. After winding and then removing the binding, doing the scraping… Still no gap. I guess i could use a bridle to force it open but that cant be good?
So i am probably not using anything close to the correct “wet method”.
definitely be more light handed on the sanding. “Let the sandpaper do the work” should be your motto here. That, or be more savvy with your scraping skills, at which point “Let the knife do the work”.
Geoff - that sounds similar but not quite the same as Peter’s method, which involved green hermetite gasket sealant and setting the reed on fire, with a plug in between the lips to make the reed very open, so the bridle would work hard to close it down and there would be no leaks between the sides. “Thompson’s disease”!
I just received a chanter here with a reed made in Peter’s method by a fellow in Ireland. Works well.
Here’s an experiment for you Rorz. Get a drone reed and hold the tongue very open. Apply some heat from a gas lighter. Wait a mo. Let go. If I’m right, you’ll have a very open reed that won’t play any more. If you are right it will make no difference. Try it with your best bass drone reed why not . . .
I got the heat method from Benedict at a reedmaking class in Dublin. He said you can use heat to speed up the process that will happen naturally over time, he implied that it wasn’t as good.
Actually John, I do use heat somewhat - changed my methods. Thanks for corroborating though
