http://www.evansweb.co.uk/pipes/chantreed.htm
In this reed making article (not for UP but very useful isn’t it?) it is said that
“I find the quality of the cane can deteriorate in time. I store mine in a sealed plastic bag, though opinions on this (and many other things) differ widely!”
I have a box full of cane tube and I must keep them for many years until
I use all of them. How should I store my cane?
Makoto
Store in plastic. Paper or cardboard has acid which harms cane in long-term storage.
Ted
Plastic rubbermaid tubs work fine.
I’ve been told the best thing to do is to allow the cane to ‘settle in’ to your local climate. I’ve been storing mine for about a year now open to the air in my home. I’ve also been told you need to wait at least one to two years before you split your tubes and prepare slips as it takes this long for the cane to cure in properly. What say ye?
B~
I recall a conversation I had with a Japanese instrument maker. He told me that he and other makers were concerned about the quality.(.or lack thereof) and supply of good cane to use to make their instruments. Apparently the CHOICEST of cane was found in the old style thatched roofs in more rural Japan. Thatched roofing had been used for centuries in Japan. There is in fact a revival in this type of roofing. As I understood it, cane was used as a skeleton for this thatching, which lasts 40-50 years before the home needs to be re-thatched. Apparently the 40-50 years of seasoning created the very best quality cane. It was dry, had been exoposed to all sorts of weather changes, not to mention all the smoke etc. from the home cooking fires. I’ve kept a rather substantial pile of cane tubes in my shed for about 6 years. I use this cane regularly and have not noticed any problems with quality. By the way, I live in Minnesota where our relative humidity right now is ZERO, and our temperatures have been way below zero for many days…our summers get ujp to 100 degrees and incredibly humid.
Interesting story about your cane storage Davey.
For the record,
I had Davey make a reed for one of my backup chanters. When it arrived in Miami last week, it played so well I decided to use it in my main chanter. It has a clear bright tone and plays great!
Huh. Hadn’t thought of that before, but Davey’s right. Cane is used as a skeleton in roof thatching.
I once spent a few days at an old minka (Japanese farmhouse) called chiiiori on the island of Shikoku. Chiiori, incidentally, means “the house of the flute.” The roof was thatched, and a quick glance at the ceiling showed an elaborate framework of cane underneath the bundles of thatch roofing. It was not uncommon for these roofs to last for 40-50 years or more, so the cane had plenty of time to age. The center of most old Japanese houses was the hearth and so there was a steady stream of smoke wafting up to the roof which would have helped keep the cane dry and slowly helped cure it over time. The house where I stayed had once been on a small tobacco farm and its former owners had been hanging tobacco leaves from the rafters for about 250 odd years. The tobacco had dyed all the wood in the house black (the whole inside looked like it had been made of ebony) and I seem to remember the cane on the ceiling was a rich dark golden brown color.
Unfortunately, there aren’t very many of these types of houses left. Thatching is an extremely difficult endeavor. You need 2-3,000 bundles of thatch and even experienced thatchers can gather little more than 3 bundles in a day. Most professional thatchers, unless they’re special employees of the government working at historical buildings, have long since died. Chiiori is quite the exception to the rule and they’ve been gathering thatch and cane for years in anticipation of re-thatching the place.
Come to think of it, I think they were going to get around to doing that pretty soon. Maybe I should go down there and see if they’d let me cannibalize the old roof…
For more info about this stuff, check out www.chiiori.org or Alex Kerr’s book “Lost Japan.”
Thatch and Cane is a different kind of plant (more narow)I think but roof made of cane is also called thatched roof. They could only seen in a limited area.
I’ve heard that the used thatch will be used for making SADOU (japanese
green tea)equipment.
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Yeah, they’re different, just to make that clear. The roof itself is made of thatch, but there’s a layer or two of thicker cane underneath that would probably be more suitable for reeds and things.