Reeds from Gouged Bassoon cane

Uilleann Pipes
1

Ive been making reeds from Gouged bassoon cane, anyone else ever use this method. I got it out of "The Pipers Review Vol. XXII No 3 Summer 2003..

2

Hey Texas,

What would you say the advantages are over spanish/calif. cane that is normally used? Is it softer? Are the dimensions of pre-gouged basson cane suitable for concert D pipes? What sort of success have you had with Bassoon cane?

Cheers,

DavidG

3

I would hazard a guess that it is harder than cane popular with UP reedmakers…being grown for a ‘wet’ instrument it would certainly have to be.

4

I believe cane slips prepared for bassoon and oboe have come up a few times before on this forum. As I recall, the main concern was that they are not the same diameter as for UP reeds, so they wouldn’t behave quite the same, plus they would need more work to carve them into shape.

djm

5

I love using bassoon cane, I probably wont ever use anything else again…

Here is a Quote from David Daye’s site…

The cane is hand selected for its mechanical and vibrational qualities. I use stiff cane, usually French bassoon cane, rather than the more flexible Spanish “bagpipe” cane preferred by many pipe makers. The French cane is more difficult to form into the proper shape and vibration, but once formed, this initial inconvenience becomes an advantage helping the reed resist deformation once put into service..

6

I don’t know about pre-gouged bassoon cane. If the original tube diameter was right, and the length was appropriate (after UP reed was completed), and it was still thick enough, and the grain and flexibility of the two pieces matched, you might have some luck. But, there’s nothing like the two slips coming from the same piece of cane, cane having had a dunk test first, the thickness width being right, and having someone custom pick the cane who knows what to look for. DD, having been a highland piper, might like the stiffer cane. I know of at least two highland pipers that felt they needed lots of bag pressure. They never really understood the finer points of the instrument though, and how pressure sometimes has to be regulated precisely with the bag arm as you play. For them, it was more like playing too hard with the bellows.

Before I got the first shipment of tubes, my first 50 reeds were made by buying bass clarinet reeds from the local music store. I was able to make some okay reeds and one or two good ones, but nothing that really compared with a pro-made reed.

What I didn’t know, when I first started, was that it’s impossible to match the grain and flexibility (dunk test) of two different store boughten reeds, and that the stability of uilleann pipe reeds depend on the amount of thickness and bark left behind and around the V scrape (where the winding is tied on)…which these reeds didn’t have. That longer thicker tail really does contribute to the perfomance and stability, I think, esp with softer cane. Stability allows one more lateral with changing climates.

I would agree that some really active cane can be obtained from some of these other instrument reeds, but I never found one that had the appropriate dimensions to make excellent reeds.

7

During this summers ‘Floating Tionol’ all the students made a fully working reed for their chanters with a Howard reed making kit. (Details were in the last ‘An Piobarie’). This comes with pre scraped, pre-gouged cane, and worked in chanters of different makes. Much more suitable than cane designed for different instruments.

To have a chance of trying one out, come along to the ‘Dry Dock Tionol’ here in Oxford on October 17th. Details on seperate thread.

8

contrabassoon cane is about the right diameter (~27 mm?). I’ve seen Spanish stuff that was soft enough and about the right thickness too, though the “crescent moon” shape isn’t there, you have to sand that off on the sanding block. IOW the gouged stuff was about the same thickness at edges as in the center.

Since you have to resand it, and the pregouged pieces aren’t that cheap, I am not sure it’s worth the trouble. Pre-“profiled” stuff is basically worthless because the preferred profile (aka ‘scrape’) for bassoons isn’t right for chanters.

  • Bill
9

The pre-gouged bassoon cane I use is not profiled, it is just a gouged slip, long enough to make on Uilleann reed of just about any length. It does have to be sanded, carved and scraped.. Dont buy profiled cane because it is only suitable for bassoon reeds…

10

Here is a piece of the pre-gouged contrabassoon cane, “as bought”, with a hand-finished slip made in the “standard” way below, for comparison.

You can’t see the thickness in this pic, but certainly you can see that the width and length are fine. Thickness of the pre-gouged cane is about 1.2mm, which is fine.

Here’s a top view:

Note that I scrape the shiny part of the bark off of my reed slips. I find that this reduces cracking when tying on the reed heads. But I don’t always attack the bark quite as aggressively as I did in this example, especially when working with softer cane.

Again you can’t really tell from these pictures, but the diameter of the two slips is pretty close to the same, ~27mm round.

  • Bill
11

I’ve used it and yes, it is pretty hard. The main advantage is the time savings for gouging the slip, not to mention much more consistent results resulting in a good yield; this makes it worth ~$1.50/ slip.

I gave up on pre-gouged cane about 6 months ago because I was having sinking and flat back ‘D’. I then went back to Spanish cane tubes and actually found my back ‘D’ woes were from gouging the slip too thin and using too small sanding tube diameter [AlanB - thanks for the advice I picked up from this list, you are a genius!].

Sometime after I have repeated good results many times, I will try back with the pre-gouged cane.

Good Luck

Karl

12

I think he’s definitely of the other persuasion, i.e. aim for the lightest pressure compatible with decent tone. Certainly the two reeds I’ve got from him are very light indeed (but they were intended for learners).

  • Bill
13

I think Ted first metioned that DD doesn’t care for the softer easier blowing California cane (on the other thread), but likes his reeds stiffer. Or, maybe we would all have to try the reeds to understand the difference! I know there is sometimes a wide gap in common definitions here on the internet!

14

My impression is that DD likes harder cane, but not harder reeds; he thins the lips a great deal as a result.

15

Right. I think DD doesn’t produce hard or strong reeds, but prefers the brighter sound you get from hard cane. Many GHB players, turned union pipers, seem to be more impressed with a bright tone.

Ted