Take a little square section block of wood, carve out a channel on one side, fill with BluTak. Voila, you can grab your slip of cane and it won’t let go for nothing. No more licking digits! Ewww. You can push like a son of a gun too. Good luck doing that with just saliva’s surface tension. I always despised sanding slips down, way more than any of the other steps in reedmaking. This makes the process a snap, relatively speaking anyway.
Another thing I’ve taken up is using a belt sander to smooth down staples, instead of futzing around with files. Think I wrote about that elsewhere. Much faster and accurate, well for me at least.
Looks like a good idea Kevin , that white ‘blu-tack’.
Not so sure about beltsanding staples though… but then I’m a File man (first six months of my apprenticeship…“here’s yer File… here’s yer lump of Steel… get on with that!”)… being able to hold the ‘job’ in one hand and the ‘tool’ in the other appears to me to be a recipe for better control.
I bet it works a treat. Does the white tac not get dusty and need replacing often?
Here is my reedgripper which has worked well for years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nxDLw3l6-8
I find it can be leaned on up the length of one side or the other or ends or middle, to a little degree; however, as I use it first to bring the slip down to a reasonably even D shaped profile slip before gouging, there is not too much need for ironing out uneveness in thickness, only the uneveness of gouging.
You eventually need to add a bit more blu-tak from all the dust, yes. That’s a small price to pay.
How does your block work, KM? Is that leather on the bottom?
I’ve cranked out about a dozen reeds with the block so far and they’ve sanded up fine, no bare spots. Sometimes I’ll have to take the slip off and sand the sides down. It’s not that tacky, Hans. Blu-tak is usually used to hold up posters, after all.
The belt sander’s much faster for me, I’m lazy. Also not a craftsman in any sense of the word. My hat’s off to you guys! Although my reeds do look like reeds, not dinky canoe paddles, like so many do.
Another thing that works pretty good is ultra thin, tight fitting, surgical gloves. Brush off any dust that may collect and it’s good as new again. Touch a damp sponge…even better.
Kenneth McNicholl Scotland uilleann pipe maker makes Slip holding block for reed-making The original reed-gripper £15 http://www.kmbagpipes.com/rdmkg.html
The sort of shoe insert I’ve used are the cheaper ones sold on fleabay from China - advertised actually
as “silicone heel liner”. About $1, inc. shipping.
I originally bought these for something completely different, and found the offcuts to have the right
amount of “grabbiness” for holding the cane. Guess its a case of YMMV though.
Thanks for the suggestion, M. I tried the strap from a pair of swim goggles, they were initially very grabby but instantly clogged up with dust. Seems you have to find just the right stuff here. I’m thinking the strap is latex but just a guess.
Tried a few more items from the Home Cheapo, very enthusiastic/interested employee suggested 3M spray adhesive - leave it on one side of a stick for a day or two, and it retains its tackiness, indeed I had to fairly yank the slip off to get it free, but it didn’t leave any residual junk on the slip. But when you touch the glue on the stick it doesn’t adhere to the fingers - you have to press into it for it to get tacky, somehow.
Also a winner: cheap latex gloves. You can test that out with just some double sided tape. With both of these you can fairly press the slip into the sandpaper like crazy. The adhesive is nice in that you can take the slip off the sanding cylinder and see how you’re progressing. Dunno how each holds up in re: clogging. Both are dirt cheap, $4-5. Duck Tape doesn’t work, though. Well, the non-sticky side, anyway…
I think I’ll stick with the blu-tack after all, despite its clogging up it’s great how the slip adheres to the tack so you can lift it off the cylinder and see how things are progressing.
You can push like a son of a gun too. Good luck doing that with just saliva’s surface tension. I always despised sanding slips down, way more than any of the other steps in reedmaking. This makes the process a snap, relatively speaking anyway.
Although my reeds do look like reeds, not dinky canoe paddles, like so many do.