Newbie alert!! Question for the cane-obsessed

Uilleann Pipes
1

I don’t know if we’re still doing the newbie alert disclaimer, but I included it in the subject anyhow so grumpy people don’t get grumpy.

Has anyone tried this?
http://daye1.com/reeds/tradreed.html
It’s David Daye’s method of humidifying cane. I’m just curious if anyone has tried it and had any luck with it, or if it is worth the hassle.

2

I found it some years ago when I was on a mission to find out as much as I could. It looked like too much work so I gave it a miss.

You should be able to make a good reed without going over the top with it. In terms of creating a stabalised reed, I’d just recommend dipping the tails of the slip into water for a few seconds before binding as this will lessen stresses and the settling process should shorten.

Just fiddle with the scrape and bridle until you have a reasonable reed and then aviod fiddling further until it’s been played for a couple of weeks or more. This should lessen the possibility of the reed going to sh#*t.

3

that seems to be a good way of shaping the tail around the staple. I’ve been doing that since my instruction w/ Michael Vignoles, and it works pretty good.
Scrape is always a struggle; it will be nice to hone my skills a little more . . .
Nunchakus skills, bowhunting skills, computer-hacking skills

4

On the scrape thing, I struggled with this part of the making process for years. I used to carve heavily into the base of the scrape to lessen bottom D gurgles and really focused on the edges with a knife to keep the centre-line thicker. My reeds had next to no bark visible and had very flat back Ds as a result of the heavy scraping at the base. However, I turned a corner with a couple of changes and discovered that you don’t have to go heavy on the base to get rid of gurgles (the overall stiffness of the reed just needs to be lessened and this can be done away from the base to avoid stuffing up the back D). I’ll share these changes incase they work for you or others:

What did it for me was to use a smaller sanding block (42mm) and to create the scrape almost entirely with sandpaper (sanding on a flat surface), only to finish off with a little tilting while sanding and a little scraping with a knife. The smaller sanding block helped to lessen stresses when tying the reed so that edges closed properly and it increased internal volume. I personally found that the sanding of the scrape zone ensures a more identical scrape on each side of the reed.

Scrape method -

  • Wrap some floss/string quite thickly from the top of the binding to about 6mm above the binding and create a 5mm wide rectangle by sanding forwards and backwards (the wrapping prevents you sanding too far down) (finger pressure more on the base of the reed head). I often find that I need to purposely tilt the reed to the right as I think that I’m sanding up the centre of the blank, but I am not.
  • move the pressure to the centre of the reed and sand sideways to start widening the upper portion of the scrape (sideways makes shorter work of it)
  • then move the pressure more towards the lips and sand forwards and backwards until you remove the bark into the top corners (keep checking that the lips haven’t been made too thin at the centre)
  • now maintain pressure towards the lips, but tilt the reed left and right so that you are just thinning the corners
  • remove the temporary wrapping and use a knife to extend the scrape into a more pointy ‘V’ and put a curve into the straight sides of the scrape (keep a fair amount of bark at the edges).

All the best

5

Goldy, what you said about the scrape vs the D’s sounds about right to me. On some chanters the “deep U” scrape works fine, but thinning the slip, etc. can be as good or better, especially w.r.t. the back d. Rather than use sandpaper, I’m using cabinet scrapers to adjust the inside scrape at the blade base and tails (after BK’s method).

As for the initial question; well, good reeds seem to go one of two ways; some survive for weeks or months, before failing (perhaps after a change of seasons) or slowly going downhill, and others seem to last forever. I think David’s method is an attempt to “automate” or simulate the process of seasonal cycling, and reverse or recover from some of those effects by re-shaping the blades. In theory the result should give you a reed that has already been “broken in” through humidity cycles and will be more stable thereafter. I haven’t tried it systematically, and it is a pretty long process, but if it works (i.e. produces a higher percentage of “immortal” reeds), then I reckon it’s well worth the effort.

Bill

6

Thanks for the link Myrddin, very useful.

John S

7

I’d like to give it another go, mainly for personal study. I’d also like to try the sanding scrape Goldy mentioned; that sounds worthwhile as well.