I know of one fellow who pours a bit of water into his bellows, and it works for him.
I’m banking on the idea that you can have an all-conditions reed. In my case, so far, so good!
That was my 7 year reed. It required very little adjusting over a very wide range of weather/humidity conditions, where other people’s pipe reeds got so wonky they wouldn’t behave, no matter how they were adjusted.
I just wish I hadn’t messed the other 2 up (actually I gave one of those away) that I had going when I made that one, but I thought at the time I finally had the “knack” of reed making.
I made lots of sawdust last summer getting some more started, now I need to buckle down and finish some of them up as they are pretreated and prestressed with neetsfoot oil and wide humidity swings.
The two I am currently playing were quickly made and I didn’t take the time to do all the “extras” needed to make them as stable.
Now, I need upper body strength built back up as I am very weak from my current long running Crohn’s disease flare.
Fancy, so do you finish the gouging and trimming the tails before you soak them in neatsfoot oil? Or leave the trimming till later?
-gary
I soak the slip for a minimum of 2 weeks. It has been gouged, sanded, grain raised, then polished with 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper, then put through a moist/dry environment for a minimum of 3 cycles, then soaked in the oil. Nothing is done to the bark side until I am ready to form tails, cut in two and tie on the staple.
What do you mean by moist/dry environment cycles?
I store it in the refrigerator 24 hours to simulate cold and dry weather (40 degrees F, about 12% humidity, I think) and, store in a closed container with a piece of damp sponge for 24 hours for high humidity (room temp around 70 deg F, humidity close to 100%).
I do this for a minimum of a week after tying up but before starting the scraping process, examining closely with a jewler’s loupe to see if it deforms, wrinkles, breaks, etc.
Benedict Koehler says “never allow a reed an oportunity to go bad or it will”, so this will help eliminate the bad pieces of cane.
I stole most of my ideas from David Daye, Benedict Koehler and Eugene Lambe, plus stuff I have seen on reed making sites.