This random question popped into my head today. What is going to influence the finished reed the most… The staple or the final shaved slip.
When i make a reed. I try to copy my Brad Angus staples but i am not sure how important that its. Its easy for me to see the difference the different shavings or slip lengths impact to the back d, note quality, and ease of upper octave playing. But i don’t get a lot of cause and effect experience from different shapes of staples.
I have bought a couple of Howard Reeds. They are finely made with lots of good testimonials. i think they have a digitally machined SS staple. And neither work on my Brad Angus Chanter. There is no back D, the upper octave is too hard and it seems like no amount of bridle play will correct it. The slip looks about the same as my Brad Angus reed but the overall length of the howard is shorter? My guess is that the staple is not a match for my chanter.
So i am almost of the opinion that the staple HAS to be right for the paired chanter. And if that is correct then you can play with the slip to get all of the playing qualities that you like?
It seems to me that Brian Howards promise that his reeds (staples) would suit every chanter( money back guarantee) does not hold water. The Millions of pounds he spent developing the whole f **king system would have been better spent taking the kids to alton towers.
It would not surprise me to find out the howards reeds work in many if not most chanters. But. I am convinced that there is not one reed for all chanters. Because i am an engineer i am interested in the repeatibility and design of a cnc produced staple… But he probably needs to have a program that takes some chanter dimensions, feeds it into a program, changes the cnc instructions… And then out pops an ideal staple???
After making reeds for so long, I think i can safely say one thing. ( And only one). Neither is more important than the other. It is an interdependent relationship. One cannot function without the other. The best made head will not perform with out being attached to a suitable staple for a give chanter or regulator. Equally the best staple will not perform if it is attached to a poorly made head. However it is true that certain aspects of a reeds can be adjusted by tweaking the head or the staple more than the other.
You not only need the right staple for your chanter, but it must also suit the way you make and tie on the reed head. It is possible to alter (for example) the relationship of the octaves by how you cut the tails on the reed head, and so you may have to alter the staple dimensions to suit.
For a Coyne B design I can make it work with either a rolled or tubing staple, depending on how I design and tie on the slip. This is also governed by how hard or soft the cane is.
It’s very difficult to make generalisations about reedmaking, and the above also goes some way to explain why I’m reluctant to give a definitive measurement for anything, though happy to provide a good starting point.
cant have one without the other. symbiotic relationship.
ALTHOUGH, one can get a sound out of either portion…yet neither individually , obtain the desired effect. perhaps more of a philosophical dilemma, a schrodingerian issue at hand here..
Actually its the quality of the cane that is most important. Sure the staple is important but if its not exactly right it can be made to play right by adjusting other aspects of the whole set up ,maybe rushing or tape or something else. But if the cane is of poor quality there is nothing you can do to make it right.
I think this has been mentioned before, but Brad Angus uses a Rolled or Conical staple design for his chanters. His chanters have been developed in such a way that the use of conical staples are the most successful. There are several makers that use Rolled or Conical Staples for their chanter designs; Woof, K&Q, and Nakatsui just to name a few.
Brian Howard’s staples are machined from a solid piece of seamless metal which is similar to Hobby tubing. By using a Howard staple (or Hobby Tubing staple) in a chanter that is specifically designed for a Rolled or Conical Staple will not be as successful. You may get the notes close but they will most likely be off particularity in the second octave.
You could make the best reed possible with the best cane ever found but if it’s sitting on top of a staple thats not designed for the chanter then it will be a complete waste of time..
Any pipermaker that designs a chanter or copies a chanter that can only be played with a conical staple is condemning that design to extinction .Its Darwin,s laws of evolution come to visit the world of Uilleann piping. If a chanter is to difficult to reed it will not get played and will not be copied by future pipemakers .
The idea that conical staples are going the way of the Dodo bird is just plain silly. It is like saying a conical reamer is too hard to make so we should change pipes to cylindrical bores. Cylindrical tubing is readily available but most of the best sounding chanters require a conical staple to play correctly. Once the craft of staple rolling is mastered, it is no problem making any staple desired. Some reed makers who are lazy, use only tubing staples. They try to fit chanters that require a conical staple and often fail to properly fit the chanter. Most attempts to make and voice chanters based on using tubing staples have not been very successful. The best sounding chanters require conical staples. The staple is an extension of the conical bore of the chanter. Next will will hear that cane is too variable so we should resort to plastic reeds, if this line of logic is followed. You can get plastic reeds from Pakistan right now, so we should all replace the old-fashioned cane reeds we have with plastic. Get over it. Tubing staples will not replace conical staples. It is survival of the fittest and conical is what fits. I doubt the Rowsome derived chanters that require conical staples will be superseded by chanters that can get by with tubing staples. They will not go extinct because they simply sound and behave better. It is not difficult to roll staples, so it is not difficult to reed chanters that need conical staples.
It should be realised that even if you make your staple from seamless parallel tubing the effect of deforming part of its shape to create the Eye and tapering sides will, in effect make the crossectional area like that of a tapered staple… perhaps not So tapered but…
The thing some people forget, when Rolling staples from sheet is to properly Anneal the metal. Arriving at the Reedmaking workshop at the Willie Week (for years out of number) and watching people trying to roll staples out of fresh,clean, bright, sheets of Unannealed Copper!!! … Hopefully this situation has changed.?
Some my not follow what you are talking about. As long as a cylindrical staple “works” in a given chanter, at least works according to all you know so far, sounds in tune with certain fingerings, and plays nice and loud, isn’t that all there is?
If a conical staple is an extension of the bore, at what point inside the staple/reed does the reverse taper work best? At the reed seat? I’m thinking of some staples that follow the bore’s taper on up to the tone chamber, and at that point begins to widen back out. Is it possible through heating/shaping/flaring to make a brass cylindrical tube match the inside of a rolled copper staple?
I find that I can frequently swap the staple of a reed without any dramatic change in tone or tuning. On the other hand, if I change the reed head (the cane), I rarely end up with a reed that is immediately playable.
However, I think you’ll find fine reedmakers and pipemakers (and players) who will stake their income and their ears on the fact that tubing is every bit as good.
So, what is “good?” Is “good and loud” and in-tune good enough? For some, yes. For others, there’s more. And again, those in the tubing camp will say that they’ve tapped into that “more” bit too.
The greatest pipemaker who ever lived, Alain Froment designed his instruments to be fitted with tubing staples, because he recognised that pipers want to play instruments and not spend time reeding them or acquiring the skill or tools to make rolled staples. Good and busy pipers don’t have time to be sending their chanter to a reedmaker when they need a reed , so the genius of Froment was to make pipes that are easier to reed by the piper himself.
One example of the evolution process and the start of the extinction of rolled staples is the work of Cillian O’Brien. Cillian’s chanters are a Rowsome based chanter but Cillian has brought the design on in leaps and now makes one of the best sounding concert pitch chanters. Cillian’s chanters are designed to be fitted with a tubing staple and only a tubing staple. As far as I can see Cillians chanters are probably the most copied chanter by other makers and because the chanters are so good they will be copied by other makers in the future. As I said before the more time consuming and difficult to reed chanters will not be copied and die.
Well the truth is that Froment chanters work ok with a tube staple but they work better with a conical staple. The octaves are more in tune and you don’t get wonky Es either. In fact some Froment chanters I’ve reeded gave a flat upper second octave notes with a tube staple.
I’ve made reeds for O’Briain and his copiers too over the years and with a well designed conical staple you tend not to get screaming sharp high A and Bs that you can, (not always though) get with a tube staple. You have to make a slightly curved flattening rather than a straight flattening on the staple to avoid that sharp octave business. Great chanters too.
As far as I can see Cillians chanters are probably the most copied chanter by other makers
Hardly. I can think of 5 and there may be 2 or 3 more but how many Rowsome copiers are there 50, 60? Cillian’s chanters are great and i’m sure there will be more makers copying his designs in the future.
Every reed maker probably has a different opinion on how best to reed chanters but the fact remains that both Alain Froment and Cillian O’Brien supply or did supply tubing staple reeds with their new chanters and there are loads of professional, semi- professional and gifted amatures out there who play their chanters with the reeds supplied.
Sorry I wasn’t very clear on the copied maker point, I meant pipemakers in the last 10 or 15 years that are being copied.
… Hopefully this situation has changed.? 
