I bought the Na Piobairi Uilleann reed template about a year ago. But it was 13.9mm wide. That’s over 1mm wider than what i typically use for my reeds. Do you think they sent me the wrong one or is that a good width for D chanter reeds?
I had one, but never got on with it. It kept slipping on the cane slip.
I make reeds of all sizes now, and on a piece of paper simply draw a line and mark off the length needed, and at right angles the centre line and shoulder positions such that these lines are wider than the slip, and a dot for the start of the scrape V. I cut the cane to length, place it over the marks and mark off on the cane.
Can be used multiple times and easily modified.
Pwrt
That template is made by Cillian Ó Briain to be used as a “guide” to make his style of reed for his chanter. I would suspect that using this template to make reeds for chanter reeds not based on Cillian’s design will give you a negative results.
They didn’t send you the wrong template. Granted, 13.9mm is a little wide but I’ve seen wider.
If you usually make reeds with a thinner slip, you should make your own template. It’s not difficult. Measure your template on a piece of sheet aluminum, brass or copper. Cut out the general shape using metal snips, and do the fine-tuning with sandpaper.
Thanks for the answers. i filed down the sides to about 12.7mm. The template makes shorter slips but i thought i would see what kind of reed it produces. If its crap i will take the recommendation of making my own template as i do see how it is a hand tool.
I have one of those and I filed the sides to 12.5 mm and I nuse it for the global lenght of the slip and to mark the tails.