What are the disadvantages/advantages to using plastic reeds?
The main disadvantage is that they don’t work. Do a search on the board and you’ll see the issues.
Hi misterpatrick
Sorry to disagree with you, but plastic reeds do work, cane reeds may sound better, I give you, but to say plastic reeds don’t work is inaccurate.
David
Although I’ve never tried plastic reeds, I’m guessing they work about as well as plastic silverware; tolerable for a side order of potato salad, but useless for a New York Strip.
Big Davy is 100% correct.If you haven’t tried one you can’t really give an opinion.
Blind we are, if creation of this clone army we could not see.
– Yoda
I have Ezee drone reeds (plastic) in my D half set and I have plastic drone reeds in my C half set and they are fine. I did come across a plastic chanter reed which was absolutely appalling.
It is safe to say that plastic chanter reeds do not work.
I have never seen one that came close to working in a union/uilleann pipe chanter. I have heard stories of plastic chanter reeds that almost worked but even these stories are rare.
Plastic drone or regulator reeds are another matter; some of them do seem to work pretty well. Many folks feel that the tone suffers, and I agree although I did play a set with plastic drone reeds for awhile. I eventually changed them for cane which sounded much better to me.
In the minority again, I have actually tried a plastic chanter reed.
(Two, to be precise.)
I’ll give the story of the one that worked:
It had a metal staple, shrinkwrapped binding; the blades were curved at the top.
It gave an Eb scale in a D chanter, played upper E,
produced upper G &F# under great opposition.
And tended to squeal on bottom D.
The timbre was blatant; vibrato existent, but lame.
It was not of South Asian manufacture.
I nudged the ‘wrapping’ up a _nano_squinch, in hopes to produce more of the upper octrave,
and it ceased to function entirely.
Composite Reg & Drone reeds are another topic altogether.
My teacher and I have been working on styrene chanter reeds for a while now and have gotten them almost to the point of being worthwhile. My current version actually plays better than any cane reed I’ve made, and better than the cane reed that came with my chanter. It plays properly in D, and is easy to blow, but the bottom A is a bit too flat and the E has a rather harsh sound. I’m trying to figure out how to correct this.
[quote=. I’m trying to figure out how to correct this.[/quote]
use cane or wood. 
before going into wood though, read my benediction and thoroughly pad a room in your house.
Hi WanabeePiper
Good luck with your experiments, they sound like they would be fun.
I for one would like to hear the results.
I have had 2 working plastic reeds, one a pakistani reed in a pakistani chanter untill I destroyed it pulling it out of the chanter to let someone try it in their chanter. The other is the plastic drinking straw reed in my original uilleann chanter which still works to this day.
David
Hi WanabePiper
Thanks for the offer, I would be delighted to have your reeds.
David
You should check the David Dayes website where he explains how to make a Plastic chanter reed with a sound clip also. I made one or two a couple of years ago and sounded well but it isnt like cane of course, it sounds like …mmmmmm… plastic? 
I prefer cane both chanter and drones.
Yep. I’ve seen (and heard) D. Daye’s site. Like I said, these’ll never replace cane for professional applications, but they are sounding less plastic-y and may have their uses. Plus, it’s a cheap project and I still make cane reeds anyways.