I posted earlier saying that I only sand the inside of my reeds with 220 grit sandpaper . When I sand the inside down to 300, or 400 , the reeds dont seem to work as well . I jst want to correct the earlier post , and say that I may give the reeds a short sanding with 300 grit paper to remove some of the roughness on the inside . I use 3 m paper , as it seems to hold up enough to get through one or two reeds , and seems to be well suited to reedmaking . I use a medium to soft spanish cane . Am I wrong ? Any takers ? Fire away , Lol . tok . 
Tok,
I quite agree with you there. I re-read your earlier post and the comment about “slipperyness” when fine sanding, which is something I’ve had thoughts on. Over here we get a 240 grit, which I find is generally the job, save for when clogs tear the cane and then the 300 comes in. One trick I was shown is to dampen the fibre (spit on finger?) and leave it for an hour, the fibres swell and another light sanding will smooth that down for a finer finish.
Alan.
Know anyone who’s ever tried using these old concave shaving razors for making reeds? They also make good trimming knives…they sharpen up better than a razor blade, and the curled edge gives great control so it doesn’t dig in. I saw a video of someone making a reed with something like this…the ribbons that peeled off were tiny like fine sawdust.
Apparently there’s something about spitting, or peeling off the cane that leaves the fibers of the wood sealed. I’ve heard sanding tends to soften the cane or make it sound woolly.
Larry D.
[ This Message was edited by: Lorenzo on 2002-12-17 03:43 ]
Will try it , alan , thanks !! tok .
[ This Message was edited by: tok on 2002-12-17 00:35 ]
I sometimes don’t sand any finer than 180 or even 120. Every time I have fine sanded it produced a bad reed. People have also given me fancy reedmaking knives in the past, but I still get the best results with sandpaper and a stanley knife.
Lorenzo , I like it . I like it alot .
On 2002-12-17 03:10, brendan ring wrote:
I sometimes don’t sand any finer than 180 or even 120.
That makes me wonder…
If you used a fine sheet of acetate (or similar) and used it like you would blades of grass (as you do as a kid, and as an adult in my case)and then use grass (don’t go there 
). Would there be a distinguishable difference in character? Memory tells me that the grass tends to give fizz/rasp??? If you follow my meaning…
Cheers
Alan
So textured is better than smooth?
This negates all the stories of waxing and buffing or resanding and burnishing the concave surface to improve playability.
Does the rougher surface make the reed become more succeptable to absorbing moisture?
Tony,
I’m not sure, but I have tried all/most of the techs., for a very smooth finish to no real advantage, though they say that the waxing/coating process is good for coping with humidity problems. Is there a smiley for “gallic shrug”…
Cheers
Alan
This is one of the old threads I was thinking of for sanding vs. shaving cane.
We have parallel threads running with this one and the "Earscplitten… one, which I just posted to on this topic. I will add that I also dampen the gouge side and rescrape to get rid of the raised grain. I have found burnishing the gouge and the scrape to be helpful with the tone for the softer California cane that I use. This seems to close the pores and slows moisture absorbtion. I used to (25 years ago) oil the slips with wheat-germ oil with a bit of vitamin E in it for moiture control, but abandoned it after a few tries. View the gouged or scraped cane under 25X magnification and see the fuzz, loose fibers and bits of grit left by the sandpaper, then view it after burnishing. That and the tone should make a believer out of anyone. Burnishing seems better than trying to use increasingly finer sandpaper. If I use sandpaper to smooth out the gouge or the scrape, I always follow up by polishing/burnishing.
Ted
Yeah. Eugene Lambe.
What type or source of cane have you found that works best?
Do most people use local cane, or is there a region of the world where the “best” cane comes from?
I generally use spanish, from Sr Medir, in Palermo(?) in Spain. I find it the most consistent, but I’ve tried Californian (nice tone, but a pain in the arse to work with) and some French too, which was fine. A lot of it boils down to spotting the good cane in the batch you buy, and that just comes with time (and making many reeds). Oh yes, and identifying a reliable source as you need to order specific diam., cane
Alan
I believe you will find Medir to be in Gerona, Spain. Palermo is in Sicily. I use California cane from only a couple of sources. It tends to crack more than others, so I dip the tails in methanol before tying up to decrease the cracks. It certainly gives the best tone of any cane I have tried and is used exclusively by Paddy Keenan, Geoff Wooff, Kirk Lynch and as much as possible by Benedict Koehler, as well as others. They use it despite its faults because of the tone which can more consistantly be had from it than any other.
Ted
You can add Alain Froment to that list Ted
Patrick.
Ted,
Oops, Palamos, not Palermo!! (Relying on memory not always good thing!)
I’ve used methanol for softening, but in our climate, Spanish goes fine. But this reminds me of another strange technique of heating the staple flare/eye just before inserting it into the tails, apparently for better “tying on”. Some people don’t want to touch their reeds, others douse them in alcohol and set fire to them ??
Alan
Doesn’t the methnol alcohol attract moisture?
This looks like the same blade from a barbers razor fixed into a safety handle.
comes from Forrests website
http://www.forrestsmusic.com/knivesandcutters.htm
Tony hi,
Alcohol is used sometimes to raise the grain of woods (in this case cane) before sanding, because it evaporates more quickly and completely than water.
dave boling