I’ve ruined what must be a dozen really nice reeds working them to that precise A=440 or that flat A that just wouldn’t go sharpen up nicely.
Is it true tat the final phases of reedmaking are the hardest??
I have made several great reeds without ruining them… How long can I anticipate they will last? I go through GHB reeds in about 6 months.
Related question: I’m using the NPU template and my reeds are wider than I was making them before. That must acount for tendancy in my new reeds to be flat?
The ‘NPU template’ (if you’re talking about the brass reed-shaping template) is exceptionally wide. Too wide for most reedmaking formulas - perhaps the thinking was that you could “center” the slip on a template that was oversized, but it’s harder to center on an undersized template? Don’t know, but if you’re making reeds the same width as the template you’re in the outer extremes of reed width.
13mm is “normal” to wide-ish for most methods; I use 12mm in fact, and the reed blades flatten/broaden a bit in tie-up for a final width of about 12.3. 12.5 to 12.7 would be more common I suppose.
re: template size – yes, yes… the reeds I made are wider, but only by very little. They became a bit more narrow as I sand them down. It is clear, however, that even that little bit of extra width from the reed formula I was using previously would make the reed flatter. I adjusted the staple further into the chanter and the bridle rides almost on the scrape. This and a depth in chanter makes for a reed in tune with itself, but louder than I’d like.
Your measurements are closer to what I was using before. Guess I felt something magically correct to be about the template..
I have always foung the final tuning (scrape) the hardest part of reed making. I can easily make a really nice blank if I take my time and regularly inspect the slip along the way.
My main problem has been avoiding flat back Ds and gurgling bottom Ds. The biggest lesson I learned about this was to stay away from the base of the reed (commonly suggested to be scraped to eliminate the gurgles and improve playability). You can have back D problems if you thin the lips too much, but I reckon you get bigger problems if you keep them thick and do the thinning at the base. If you look at the “pictures of your reeds” discussion thread, you can try to mimick what you see there (the picture where there’s a mix of reeds made by Alan Burton and Tok are along the lines of what has worked for me).
Just incase you want to try some specific measurements that have worked for others, My reed is a 76.6mm reed made with a 48mm staple and a 12.7x1.2mm head (formed on a 45mm sanding block). The scrape is about half way between a strict ‘V’ and ‘U’ shape. The sides of the slip were kept thicker at 0.4mm to keep the internal volume up (I found this to allow for heavy closing of the lips without the whole reed collapsing to a smaller volume). Due to the top half of the reed receiving considerably more scraping than the base, the lips naturally closed down from the initially large eye opening in its ‘blank’ form (before scraping).
I hope you find some joy soon - (I was making reeds for about 3 years before I found the formula that worked for me).
I am getting along with back & bottom D all right. My problems lately have consistently been 2ve A dropping out (but not B!). I think I solved this with avoiding scraping the center too thin compared to the edges.
The other challenge I am working on is balancing the octaves. I am so inconsistent: at times I’ll churn out a reed that goes in the chanter and plays, other times (more often) I struggle with the right bridle position, reed depth, etc to bring both octaves into balance with the drones AND to play close to A=440. I have a binder full of manuals from the web and printed out posts from this forum. Don’t know what I’d do without this resource (Guess I’d only play GHBs…)
Then, I have 2 chanters and reeds behave better in one than the other. This adds one more variable to the mess.
I took some measurements of my favorite reed and I’m in the process of making a batch of 6 as much like it as I can. We’ll see …
Yes, it is a great winter hobby, which allows you to experience first hand what effect your local climate has one these charming little buggers. I think you will be interested in seeing how these reeds will behave this summer. Hang onto them for next winter’s playing, and the following winters.
If you keep making batches of 6+ reeds at a time, you’ll get to where you want to be in relatively no time at all. I make from 5 to 10 reeds daily, and have gotten to a point where my success rate is 9 out of 10. But, then again, I am always tweaking ideas and their applications… looking for that holy grail of reeds.
Yes, I am inconsistent and then I experiment as I go without keeping track of what I’m doing, so I might have come up with great ideas and forgotten them…
Say, while we’re at it, how about some advice on how reeds settle in – what kinds of misbehaviors will reeds enjoy that I should ignore because the thing just needs time to get used to being a reed?
Next question: My July reed is really junk, but I hung on to it because I assume it will be fine in summer. Yes?
One more … am I right in thinking my winter reeds are thicker (b/c of dryness) and will swell with summer humidity to become harder to play and out of tune?
I make from 5 to 10 reeds daily, and have gotten to a point where my success rate is 9 out of 10. But, then again, I am always tweaking ideas and their applications… looking for that holy grail of reeds.
Can I ask you how you get them to not leak at the sides?
Before cutting the slip in two in order to tie together, make certain the edges are even and sharp… but not too sharp.
Then, when tying the reed head to the staple, try not to tie the binding much beyond the point where the staple eye sits between the reed tails…1mm or 2mm at the most.
If tails are too wide or the ‘shoulder’ where the tails start is too wide or has a pronounced corner, then leaking is often an issue. Also the staple ‘taper’ can affect how the head ties on. If you have a long and flat taper the blades will part as you tie 'em up. etc., etc., (also using tubing and hand rolling has some slight differences that impact how a reed ties up).
I think it is easy to lose sight of small aspects of the design that affects many areas of a reeds response and tuning (and for that I still find Dave Hegartys book a marvel!). I guess it’s a good idea to incrementally alter what you are doing and keep notes.
Hang onto them for next winter’s playing, and the following winters.