The batch I recently got seems to be very hard… too hard to make a workable reed. Unfortunately my home grown stuff is in short supply. What’s others opinions of npu supplied cane?
In a word RUBBISH !!!
Unfortunatly the cane that is sent out via post is never of that great a quality in fact it tends to be the stuff that was hand rejected by local makers or makers who are travelling through. The only way to get good cane form NPU is to be there and pick it yourself. With the two suppliers below im sure you will be able to come to some sort of arrangement.
Maybe given your locale and perheaps the difficulty of getting good cane, you should maybe looking into buying pre-gouged slips or ready formed heads. This may elimainate the cane problem for you and then you can worry about tying the head on to the correct steeple.
Regarding cane :
Contact Joseph Sampson on sampsoncane@gmail.com for quality Californian cane ( although you may find this stuff a bit “hard” ). However will make an excellent reed 
or in Spain medir s.l for great spanish cane. They majority of makers arouund the world use this stuff!! You may find this more suitable in terms of hardness/softness.
This is a thread on the other forum regarding pre gouged slips and ready formed heads for sale
http://uilleannforum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1176
Hope this helps.
Fellow C&F member Mike Hulme was advertising French cane a few posts ago - mostly drone but may have some chanter stuff https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/fs-drone-cane/61660/1 which I have bumped up with a post
This will be hand selected
John
I have some very nice soft French chanter cane. PM me if you want more details.
I’ll take it.
I’ll second the Mike Hulme cane. Very good stuff.
Nate
Hello
Not to step on Mr. Hulme’s toes (I am aware that he has some very good soft French cane), but you’d like to try some California cane just drop me a PM also.
All the best,
Thanks guys. Might try both Californian and Mike’s Spanish and compare results. I’ve only really used home grown cane (courtesy of Ian MacKenzie or Sydney’s south coast) except for my recent NPU stuff.
Cheers
Hey all.
I recently acquired a couple of sticks of C. cane from Mr. Sampson and in my opinion, it is every bit as good as the stuff I have gotten from Ted Anderson. Lovely stuff altogether.
Haven’t tried any of Mike’s cane yet, it is on my list of “things to play around with”.
I think Mike only has French cane.
I have both French and Spanish Cane. As far as I can determine the only difference between the two is that the French stuff is softer internally, and has a slightly straighter grain. This means that the blades can be left thicker and the tone is mellower. Having seen Finbar Furey’s video clips I note that the tube he was cutting his slip from was very long; I have not found such long pieces between nodes, but the stuff I harvest is dead straight.