I thought I’d place this post to endorse the practice of dipping the tails of a reed slip into water before binding for all of you who haven’t tried it yet.
A post was placed in relation to Howard’s ‘ready-tie’ reeds where the dipping process was brought to my attention. I played around with this process and produced two reeds that bound really easily without splitting - I barely needed to chamfer the edges of the tails. I watched how the cane soaks up the water very quickly and travels up the thin edges of the blades beyond the tails. If you submerge the whole tail in water, it quickly soaks up towards the top of the head. However, it you half submerge the tails, it nicely soaks the whole tail area and just a little of the head.
Therefore, I would strongly suggest trying this process if you regularly have problems with your reeds splitting - Simply Pair the halves as normal, chamfer the edges, dip the tails into water about halfway for about 10 seconds before shaking the excess out, then bind. The water will continue to soak up the edges of the head so avoid squeezing the blades together at the top of the reed until it has dried out fully to prevent the edges collapsing.
I’ve never had a probl;em with splitting slips when I tie them up. Am I missing a technique that I should be using here? I’ve always found that just cutting the tails correctly and taking the bark off the edges worked fine on its own. Interesting methods however.
It’s a very ancient practice I think. You can tell with the older reeds–I’ve seen a few–the winding shapes the edges of the blades to the staple. You can tell the edges were dipped, perhaps the entire tail. If you take the staple out, with the blades still tied, the hole in the tails looks round, and the marks from the winding can be seen on the sides/edges of the blades.
An alternate approach is to “sweat” the tails over a steaming kettle.
I mention this for the sake of completeness, but in my personal experience, cracking slips are a sign of either flawed cane (such as a deep ridge in the bark) or flawed inter-relationships among slip width, curvature, and staple dimensions.
I prefer the ‘dip’ to ‘dry’ tying the reed. As Lorenzo stated above, when wet the tails conform to the shape of the staple, which creates a more airtight seal. Also, if one needs to for some reason or another, re-tie the reed, the task is simpler because of the shape of the tails.
I am planning to have a go at a few reeds in the near future and currently class myself as the owner of a gouge rather than any sort of reed maker.
I was wondering does the wetting of the tails have any similar effect to hollowing the tails with a gouge in terms of changing the amount of force pushing the head together?
I don’t think it’s quite as drastic or controllable a measure as a second gouge, but I do think wetting has an effect on the cavity above the staple inasmuch as it doesn’t require as much tension to close the cane around the staple, so you can presumably have a finger on how the cavity shapes itself out by the tension you use and where you put it. If you read David Dayes site about ‘punishing’ reeds to work in different climates, you’ll get th idea extactly where you can go with this. http://www.daye1.com/reeds/tradreed.html
I’m very much into the shape of the tail in this matter, as that really will determine how the blades close on the staple in the first place. I was always taught that a wetted tail should be left tied on for about 3 days, so that the cane is properly dry, as you may undo what you set out to achieve as soon as you start shaping the ‘scrape’, if the cane is still drying.
Though, with Meths, you can cut the drying to about 3 hours, and I have heard of Trichloromethane (sp? correct chemical?) being used, which is almost instantaneous, but an extremely hazardous material, so it’s not worth the time saved I think.
You just reminded me of when someone stole the chloroform from the Chemmy lab at school, they tried to get high and passed out in the toilets. What did they expect?
I checked my notes and all I can find is reference to Meths. I’d better write a disclaimer about using Chloroform… (I am convinced, now, that I am mixed up with a method for cleaning reeds?)
Could be methyl alcohol–liquid, tends to dissolve a lot of plastics, paint, and everything but dries quickly. Could also use ethyl ether, what we get as “starting fluid” in an aerosol can for firing up the snow blower when it’s 20-30 below. Don’t want to whiff much of that either, but safer than chloroform. Or perchlorethylene, used as dry-cleaning solution.
