This is directed at Giovanni Lo Zampognaro or anyone else who has ventured into the abyss of making double reeds made from plastic for Zampognas or related bagpipes (Charlie?).
It relates to Number 6 Plastic. I picked up my 4 palmi Zampogna in Italy this past summer while visiting my relatives. I was surprised to see that my pipe maker had fitted it with plastic reeds (he seemed like the cane reed type since he’s been making zamps since 1958). The italians make their plastic reeds from calling cards or Mylar electrical insulation. Mine were made from the calling cards. Anyway, to make a long story short the right chanter reed was a little unstable. SO… Giovanni Lo Zampognaro was kind enough to send me a set of generic 4 palmi reeds to see if they would go in my pipe. They did except the right chanter reed always gave me problems. Finally after fiddling with it a lot I destroyed it. Giovanni sent me an “emergency” back up reed which also worked but never worked well and had volume problems. (This is not a knock against Giovanni as he was making the reeds “blind” without my pipe in front of him simply guessing at their dimensions so that fact that the reeds worked at all is a testament to his reed making ability.)
I decided that the only way to be successful with this was to make my own reeds because it’s impossible to make good reeds for a pipe when you don’t have the pipe to work with. Plus I wanted to be a “self sufficient” Zampognaro. Well, I had a small cache of number 6 plastic that Giovanni had sent me from California that I was practicing making reeds on. I decided I should scout out my own Number 6 plastic cup source. I have discovered that most plastic cups are now made with number 5 or 1 plastic. Although I should add that I dont eat at most fast food restaurants, nor do I drink carbonated beverages (hiatal hernia…) so I haven’t been able to inspect all the cups. Anyway I did find a couple sources for Number 6 cups. The courtesy water cups at a local pizza place and the cups at this hamburger place which I can’t remember the name of.
Anyway after COUNTLESS frustrating attempts at making reeds with my new plastic cups I was consistently failing. I would get the reed about 90 percent there and then I would push it to get it to play my scale and I would end up killing it and starting over. I tried several staple lengths as well. I was beginning to think that there was something wrong with my reed making (self taught from written instructions from Giovanni) or my chanter is bunk, or I was trying to force my chanter to play in a tonality it didn’t want to (It was original in D and now I have it in C#).
So after having many failures with my new plastic cups I went back to one of the remaining plastic pieces that Giovanni sent me -a portion of a Taco Bell cup to be precise and made a reed with it the other day and it work… at least so far. It’s actually the best this pipe has been sounding since I got it. The reed is stable, loud and plays the scale in tune w/ no problems and is unaffected by modest pressure variations.
So my conclusion is this - All Number 6 plastic cups are not created equal. there is a difference in thickness and texture. Making a reed is riding a razor thin line of workability and small factors in the structural make up of the plastic matter.
So I’d like to hear anyone’s thoughts on number 6 plastic. What is your source for it? Any national fast food chain I could find it at here in Kansas City? Are there other plastics that work better? Anyone using Mylar??
7-11’s sometimes have it in the ‘big-gulp’ cups…Yoplait used to put out those BIG yoghurts in #6, but anymore theyre only using 6 in those teeny cups, that have serrations (going the wrong way, of course)…
I just keep my eyes open for plastic that looks /feels like it can do the trick…
What are you using for binding + staples, may I ask?
For staples I am using Hobby Brass/Aluminum that Sean gave me. For binding I am using cotton thread that I black wax. Then I used Teflon tape over the binding and around the bottom portion of the reed. Pretty much emulating the SF method.
I’m going to have to stop in some gas stations and check out their cups soon.
Today as I departed my house to take a walk I stopped when I noticed a mangled plastic cup on the ground near the sidewalk. As I have developed a habit of checking the bottom of plastic cups for number 6 plastic I stopped to inspect the gnarled cup. (Not quite as romantic as harvesting cane but Arundo Donax doesnt grow in Missouri, just fast food chains…) To my surprise it was a number 6! At first I assumed that it was probably just an old cup from the bygone days of number 6 plastic, now given way to an era of number 1 and 5 plastic - unusable for reed making. But I noticed that the design on the cup was for the recently released transformers move and the cup must have come from the Burger King down the block from my house. I have lived near this Burger King for 3 years now and never been to it because it is on my list of fast food boycott locations which I subscribed to after reading the book Fast Food Nation some 10 years ago. Come to think of it, it’s been nearly 10 years since I have eaten McDonalds, something I don’t miss in the least bit.
Anyway, I made a detour on my walk over to the Burger King and found that they are currently carrying these cups. They are 42 oz (is it possible to drink 42 oz of coke???). and they won’t just give them to you but I had to actually buy them, however they applied two senior citizen discounts to my order because I wasn’t buying them for the soft drink as I don’t even consume carbonated beverages. So I purchased $22 worth of 42 oz #6 plastic cups which came out to 15 cups. One of the clerks came up and asked me if I was buying all the cups for the scratch off game piece to win $1,000,000. I told her it was for bagpipe reeds. I was unaware of the game pieces. I scratched off all 15 of the game pieces and won a Wopper, Cheese burger, apple pie, milk shake, and breakfast sandwich. Unfortunately, I did not win the million dollars.
I concluded that it wouldn’t be a break of my burgerking boycott if I redeemed some of the coupons since they were free and I only aquired them because I bought the empty cups. I redeemed the Wopper, apple pie and milk shake. The milk shake was ok, about what I expected. The apple pie looked so disgusting that i didnt even taste it - it went directly to the trash. I ate the wopper and I thought it was pretty gross. Definitely wouldn’t ever pay for this sandwich and I don’t understand how they built a fast food franchise based off this sandwich.
These #6 cups are identical to the taco bell cup that I used to make the reed currently mounted in the right chanter of my 4 palmi zampogna. Actually these cups are a bit larger but I think they would work the same. So if anyone is looking for number 6 plastic cups for reed making, I would direct you to burgerking. Sean if you ever pass through KC again I’ll give you a few as I think that these 15 will last me the rest of my reed making life.