This may be a stupid question but…
Lets assume you have a hand full of slips with fixed slip width, length, and thickness after gouging. All the same cane. All the same hardness. All the same cane diameter. Then to finish you sand with a sanding block all to the same thickness (say .039" at the CL). Oh and all the staples are identical.
But each of those slips get that final sanding with a sanding block that is either 24 mm, 38mm, 47mm or 70mm. What can I expect in terms of the performance of each reed? What can I expect in terms of how each may need different scrapes?
I think I know that the smaller dia block sanded reeds will require more help from the bridle to close down to an acceptable reed aperture. And the 70mm may need help from the bridle to open it. The 38mm and 47mm will be close to the right aperture and need only a little assistance on the correct aperture.
But does it make any difference whether you have a little or a lot of bridle help OR whether you are forcing the reed closed or forcing it to open?
I know from reading Tim Britton’s book a hundred times that he thinks that you need no bridle and if any adjustments need to be done you squeeze the end of the staple.
I would do an experiment on this but it requires making a bunch of staples and slips identically the same except for the final sanding block. I am not that repeatable to trust whatever conclusions I would come up with.
More pressure from the bridle to close a reed can cause all kinds of bother.
There’ll be more tension on the reed overall so it will run quite sharp and take a good of pressure from the bag to sound. You might find that you have to thin the lips a bit more than usual to get a sound.
Extra tension on the part of the reed under the bridle can mess with your back D and bottom D’s. Gurgles, chirping, cracking can ensue.
I find a sanding block of 60 to 70mm works for me, for D reeds. But then they don’t need much bridle tension so they run flat. But I make them 80 to 82mm long which is a tiny bit shorter than some designs. Plus a 50mm staple.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if your staple eye is large (over 1.6mm) when you tie the reed head on it will open up the reed lips anyway.
Do you let the reed rest between tying the head to the staple and scraping/sanding?
I do the following.
Dip the tails in water for a few seconds.
Tie the head to staple, not too tight, wait a day. (at least)
Untie and retie a little tighter, wait a day
if the reed lips look too open, repeat.
Day 4 (usually 5 or 6) sand and scrape.
The resting time helps to remove some tensions from the cane which, hopefully, gives a steadier reed.
Tommy
P.S.
A tip, (I do this sometimes, if I think the cane is a little on the hard side or chanters other than ebony)
When you tie the reed head on the first time, place the cane 1 or 2mm further onto the staple than your measurements dictate. It does 2 things. It settles the cane a bit quicker so that when you move it back to where you want it for the second tie there’s a bit less tension on the head and you can tie it tighter.
The imprint of the staple in the cane will create a tiny cavity or ‘sound box’. This can result in a more toneful reed.
Tommy
Wow… Excellent advice. I will try all of that. I hate walking away from a reed for a day between wrappings… But I will try it.
thanks
As I see it the diameter of the sanding block relates to the diameter of the cane tubes you are using, so that the slip arrives at a Cresent shaped crossection where the thickness at the centre is .04" (or whatever size you wish) and the edge thickness is virtually nothing.
Obviously to achieve this one needs to match the sanding diameter to the cane tubes… as a point of reference I use a 40mm sanding block with 20-22mm cane… and head widths of 10.5- 10.8 mm.
For narrower reed heads I would choose smaller cane and smaller sanding roller and vice versa.
Your results may differ.
Geoff.
PS; Tommy’s advice about binding up slowly and letting the bound up reeds rest for a day or so before starting to scrape is very important … so heed it and your success rate will improve !!