Oiling reeds?

Uilleann Pipes
1

Hi Everbody!

Has anybody here ever experimented with oiling reeds? This guy says he soaked a slip for two seeks in neatsfoot oil and that it works wonderfully. I live in a Very Cold City and the gets Really Dry here in the Eternity men call Winter, so this would be great for me. I don’t have anything with which to make reeds (other than my good will, innate pluck and stick-to-itivness), but if anyone here has done this before, I’d give it a whirl. I was thinking of making reeds myself, and what with a long, boring winter coming up, well.

http://naomisfancy.virtualave.net/oilreed.html

Thanks,
Mark

P.S. the site takes quite a while to load.

2

Cue Phil! (that’s "the guy"s name) :slight_smile:

He’ll probably tell you all about it, i read he’s got some good results treating his reeds like that.

3

That particular reed that I described died this winter in the “reed hell” weather we went through.

I still use that method, but I soak the slips at least 2 weeks or until I need to make another.

After the reeds are made, I treat them each spring and fall with a dip up to the winding, then I hang them lips down to drain overnight, then wipe any excess off with a rag.

I can usually tell more tuning difference with temperature changes than I can with humidity changes.

4

Fancy, I know others who use neatsfoot oil and swear by it, but I am curious about other oils, as well. Have you tried others?

Some people have said they use almond oil on their reeds. I wonder if mineral oil wouldn’t work as well. It wouldn’t go rancid the way almond oil would. I think I asked this question way back and never got much of an answer.

Thx,

djm

5

Neatsfoot?
some people swear by it… others swear AT it!

I soaked a finished reed in neatsfoot… it dulled the tone.
Tried almond oil and got similar results.

6

Tony, I’ve also heard that from my pipemaker. He is against using oils of any kind. That’s why I’m a little torn on this question. I don’t want to ruin a good reed.

Hmm, maybe I should try it on a bad reed. :confused:

djm

7

Funny you should mention trying it on a ‘bad’ reed. If it does actually work you might never know it.

If you go the Neatsfoot route, you would better your success to follow Phil’s recipe. Soak the reed slips and wipe dry before final sanding as the oil will affect the shape of the cane.

I still think a wipe of lacquer sealer or shellac on the cane wouldn’t soften it like the neatsfoot does.

8

A clarinet reed maker used to (1940’s) sell “climatized reeds” which were soaked in wheat germ oil prior to shaving to size. I tried this years ago, but abandoned it due to tonal changes. Oiled reeds tend to be duller. I have tried thin CA glue on a finished reed, swiped on with a Q-tip, which hardened the reed. This required rescraping with a resulting very harsh tone. Sanding sealer and other treatments have been tried. I prefer the sound of natural soft cane. For dry climates, soft cane reeds can be made in the climate they will be used in. I think the best sound can only be obtained with untreated cane. Mastery of the instrument includes learning to deal with climatic vagaries and learning to make and adjust reeds to local conditions. There are conditions that reeds don’t like, and giving into quick fixes, while attractive, yields a tonal compromise that many pipers are not willing to make. I moved to the San Francisco bay area from So. Idaho (dry) in order to have a friendlier reed climate. If you are willing to sacrifice tone, lots of innovative things can be tried. Ebay lists plastic UP reeds, but there are not many takers…

Ted

9

Ted, you get no arguments from me on the sound of natural cane, but moving out to la la land (anywhere on the west coast, basically) is hardly a viable solution for most of us.

What I’m trying to overcome is the oversensitivity of the reeds. The relative humidity here can and does jump by 40-50% in a matter of hours on a regular basis. In winter, we have to deal with extreme dryness. In summer it is as humid as Carolina. But I do not want to compromise on the tone, as you have mentioned. That’s why I keep looking to see who has tried what.

JQP, sorry to hear about your ingrown pluck. Some day I’ll tell you a story about the battle of Agincourt. :laughing:

djm

10

Hi Folks,
Uilliam mentioned a method of removing moisture from reeds and as a side effect (I think) leaving a coating of oil on them. At least thats what I took it to mean, here’s the thread.

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=5658&highlight=

Cheers, Mac

11

It’s strange how there are so many totally different experiences with reed treatments.

I can hear no tonal differences between similar neetsfoot oil treated or untreated reeds. I can detect no difference in hardness between soaked and unsoaked slips from the same tube of cane.

I have dipped untreated reeds into neetsfoot oil down to the binding and let drain overnight, wiped off any excess oil the next day and I could detect no difference in tone between dipped and undipped. My dipped, un-pretreated reeds are much more humidity sensitive than ones made with a soaked slip, but less than a completely non-treated reed.

The only difference I have experienced is that the treated reeds tolerate humidity changes very well, but does nothing to change the tuning changes caused by changes in altitude and temperature.

I very much wish it would make a less bright reed so I could practice my D stick comfortably inside…

12

I wonder if the difference in treated vs untreated reeds is real or perceived? There is a reference on another thread to a software-based spectrum analyzer that runs on one’s PC. The author has assured me it has the resolution to display all harmonics if you want to compare timbres.

I am thinking that, to overcome my own prejudices, and also to compensate for possible ear-fatigue, having a reference tool like this might help to shed a bit of light on what is really happening, if anything at all.

Any other ideas/opinions/experiences are welcome.

djm

13

Listen to Ted. He’s been around the pipes longer than most of us, and many of us combined, and is an expert recognized by some of the very best players. If your mind argues with what he’s saying, recognize there may be more to learn about tone and better playing reeds than what is thought possible…for all climates. What’s so hard about humidifying a room when it gets unbearably dry? I don’t know what to do if the humidity is 99.99% all the time…maybe thicker reeds?

I was steaming grape juice last year when I suddenly realized that the humidifier advice really did work. The reed was just jumping off the chart and wanted to play.

14

If you want to quiet down a loud D chanter you can shove some wires in the bore and use a reed with a flatter second octave and sharper overall pitch. With the wire everything will be in tune. You might even like the result better! I did thus with my old blastamatic Quinn and it became quite twee sounding.

15

There are no blastomatic chanters, there are only blastomatic reeds. Any knucklehead who is acquainted with large bore chanters, and with good large bore chanter reeds, knows how to make it sound as quiet as a flat set without losing any tonal quality, simply by designing the reed so that the adustment for such mysteries in simply in the bridle.

Even Dionys would probably agree with that. :smiley:

16

Perhaps it’s that California stuff that Ted uses. :smiling_imp:

A friend of mine gave me some tubes that he had gotten from Ted, but I haven’t made trash/reeds with it yet.

Of course, my ears are 62 years old and I can no longer hear the horizontal output of a TV, so I could now watch it comfortably if I watched TV.

That means my high hearing cut off is less than 17 khz now, so if there are real high harmonics (after all, doesn’t the reed produce a square wave, so there has to be unless the chanter filters them out) that change, I would have trouble detecting it.

As far as the dulling of the tone goes, someone mentioned that there would be a grain raise after soaking in the oil.

After following David Daye’s experiments on the mailing list, I modified my method somewhat. I make the slips, rough sand them to the thickness I want, then soak them overnight in distilled water, weighing them down with a kitchen knife to keep them under water.

Then I dry them in a warm place (6" away from a 40 W bulb is nice) until bone dry. Then I fine sand, finishing up with 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper until they are shiny, then, I moisten my finger in the water and dampen it and let the grain raise again (very little if any), dry and polish again with the 1000 grit, then soak in the oil.

Perhaps it’s the grain raising technique that I use that makes the difference. I haven’t seen anyone polish the insides as shiny as mine are in any of the reed workshops I have attended.

Actually, it is all controlled by the moods of the good folk, so just don’t tee them off.

17

Alan Moller indicated he polishes the slip with wax:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=1921&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=a8582bbd66453593f13fa44b65d234b1

Brendan Ring has a method that’s TOTALLY opposite, saying some of the best reeds had a textured/rougher surface:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=8219&highlight=grit&sid=a8582bbd66453593f13fa44b65d234b1

18

The Rogge reeds I’ve come across are softer, muted or flat pitch type of sound (this doesn’t mean they’re bad). He appears to use a fairly thin slip with thin sides or corners or what you will, and that design is prone to collapse. It’s tricky to get a reed like that stable, but it can be done with a bit of perseverance, but I think they tend to be a bit unsteady under pressure, but it’s not a bad way to go if you must have quiet concert pitch (and a couple of Kevins rushes up there of course). I tried candlewax rubbed in the slip for climate stability but didn’t feel it was advantageous really (seeing as I was living in a West Clare kind of climate!!), and like Ted says, with something like superglue or Zap CA glue applied, the slip tends to get a harsh croaky sound, not very plesant really. I just can’t see that oil is going to be beneficial for tone or response from the reed. Out of interest, just how long do you guys soak your cane and how do you know when it’s properly saturated?? I just get this picture in my mind of gouging a slip with goo being squeezed out of it. shudder.

Alan

19

I finish my slips up to the point which you would usually be ready to cut it in two and tie on to the staple. I just don’t cut it, but I put it in the oil then and soak for two weeks minimum. I keep a bunch of prepared slips soaking and some have soaked for at least 6 months, probably more as I didn’t date some of them in the jar.

20

Thanks for the ego rub Lorenzo! I am still learning that the longer I work with reeds, the less I understand them. I have not used neatsfoot oil and can’t comment on it. I believe some Bulgarian gaida players cook their elder for reeds in sheeps tallow or something, so anything is possible. I may mess around some more with this. The soft Calif. cane I use is perhaps more affected tonally by oiling than Spanish cane. I am open to more experimentation. I also have 62 year old ears with a falling off of higher frequencies. All I can say is that is something is working for you, go with it. I have a Quinn stick in D that is certainly no session blaster the way it is reeded, but I sure could make it much louder with a different reed. I have heard lovely tone from large bore (read Rowsome) chanter designs. I would not say Liam O’Flynn or Paddy Keenan were session blasters, Kevin, and some mighty nice music comes out of their sticks! I believe the reed and the player have a lot to do with what kind of tone a chanter will produce. If I were to oil a reed, I would put the slip in a flask of oil with a vacuum pump attached and load the slip with oil under a high vacuum. I have access to this equipment at work so it would be a simple experiment to see if this gave the same saturation as long term soaking. This is how wood is stabilized with polymers. I never heard any results of PEG treated reeds. I have found guys who make reeds in their own climate extremes often have good luck. They have winter and summer reeds. Wet reed players also have problems with weather changes. I have polished the inside of my slips, but others get better results by not doing so. I will do some more messing around when I get time this winter. I certainly enjoy hearing what others are doing and am always open to learning something more from other reed makers by hearing of their experiences.

Ted