Reed making question: hard D

Uilleann Pipes
1

Getting hard D seems to be some choice between a sharp back D (so I tape the hole) or an in-tune back D and no hard D :cry:

I scrape the V into a U to weaken that area enough to get the hard D.

Thoughts on this? What do you folks do to shape the reed to get a nice hard D?

Or will that ā€œalmost hard Dā€ sound gradually become a hard D when the reed has been played in a bit?

Thanks-
Dave Jones

2

I have to stick a garbage tie up the bottom of the chanter to bring the hard D in and flatten it slightly.

3

My experience of getting a hard D to sound is the side-effect of a flat back D rather than a sharp one. I find that the more you scrape into the base (creating the ā€˜Uā€™ shape) or the more you scrape the sides of the upper portion, the easier it is to get a hard D. Scraping both these areas flattens the back D (the first far more rapidly than the second). I find that the further you scrape into the base, the smaller the tuning gap becomes between the soft and hard Dā€™s (i.e. hard D isnā€™t so sharp against the soft D).

The balance between removing gurgles from bottom D without adversely flattening the back D has been my ongoing nightmare with reedmaking. Iā€™ve cured all problems with my reeds reasonably early on, but Iā€™m still struggling with the D issues 4 years down the track.

I hope you can find a solution to this problem soon.

4

With all things in making these little squeakers, going slowly, adjusting a little bit at a time, is the key for getting a good reed. A big thing to remember is to avoid getting the lips too thin.