wich gouge do i take ???

Uilleann Pipes
21

Is there a site that offers a good description of these different gouges and what their numbers and all mean??

B~

22

With wide bore D chanter reeds in mind, look at the drawing of sweeps above and see why #8, and possibly a #6, would be too deep, except for maybe the tails. Alan would know. Too deep, and the lips will be open to wide apart, too much internal volume…meaning upper octave will tend to be too high and too much air passing through…meaning the lips would have to be too thin to open close (vibrate properly), meaning sinking Ds.

Incannel gouges. The numbers on the gouges corresponds to the sweep like on the drawings above.
Gouge (#6 sweep, 16mm wide, inside ground for gouging inside of cane) -TB
Gouge (#4 sweep, 14 mm wide, for initial gouging, if 2 gouges are desired) -TB

Brian…here’s a link to your previous thread too…
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=14350&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

23

AlanB wrote:
I go for a #4. When you first start gouging, a #6 is so easy to over gouge. A #4 will impart the closest curvature if you are using a section of a 72 - 80mm diameter former to sand. I’ve never seen a #8, but that sounds way deep…


Alan et. al.,

Thanks all for the info. about gouge sweeps. What diameter former do you use to sand narrow bore reeds like C? S.G. recommends 1.8" / 45.7mm - would the #6 sweep get closer to this?

So, what in your collective judgement does it take to make a reed that isn’t an arm-buster (opened way up, which is how I have to play my C reeds here in the high/dry Rockies)? As soon as I try closing it down, or squeezing the bridle a bit, the lower octave chokes off. I have a D reed, in contrast, that comes from the east coast and is very easy to play and adjust. Which are the key factors in making a reed that is easier to play:

  • width of the scrape (how much bark in the sides)
  • thickness of the blades / how thin to scrape the blades
  • qualities of the cane (hardness)
  • overall length of the reed (blades / staple)
  • larger bag in tandem with reed design
  • other ideas?
24

There’s a #6, 18mm wide gouge on eBay. Current price: $15US

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3702046043&category=16226

25

Note that different widths of the same sweep have different radii. Also sweep numbering systems are used by different gouge makers. For the best information we might want to use radius guages to measure the sweep of gouges and speak in terms of radii rather than sweep numbers. I use a #7 sweep in a 5/8" wide gouge of a unknown maker, gotten at a garage sale. When I can find my radius guages, I will report the radius of this gouge.

Ted

26

But what is a radius gauge, and how would any of us use the info if we don’t have the same gauge? Not being smart, just technically challenged.

djm

27

Radius guages are flat pieces of metal that have both concave and convex half circles of a given radius formed on the edge. They are available in inch or metric in small graduations. You use the guages to measure radii (duh!) of either inside or outside circular curves of objects. You could use washers, coins or any thing round to match up to the curve of say a gouge. Once you find a curve which fits the object being measured, you can either read the radius off of the guage or measure the diameter of the other circular object you matched to the unknown curve and divide by two to get the radius of the curve. I use them to measure the radii of slips of cane. Some cane is not very round and after cutting slips from a tube I measure the radius of each slip. For example, a 1" dia. tube can produce slips of 15/32" to 17/32" radius, or even a greater range. You can even see if a slip is not circular in its outside curve by placing it in the guage and eyeballing the curve of the cane vs. the curve of the guage.

Ted

28

It was a long time ago, but I bought mine by the recomendation of Mark Hillmann. IIRC, it was a # 6 sweep.

I measured the width and it measures 0.980" wide and I found a marking on mine that says 26 mm.

If I leave enough meat on the edges, there is enough meat in the center so that the sanding cylinder has to sand some, even on my D reed (2.57" dia), but it isn’t a lot of sanding in either the C or D slips.

29

Andreas Rogge sells a Reed-Making-Kit sanding block, gouge, shooting board. Jens emailed me the size measurements today.

  1. Gouge 16mm wide (is this gouge deep like the No 6 )
  2. Sanding block has a 42.5mm radius
  3. shooting board is long enough to gouge the slips

He ran out of Sanding block and shooting board. He will have more in April but only has Gouges in stock.

Do any of you use Rogge Reed-Making-Kit.

I have the gouge from NPU used by Cillian O Briain and Allan Moller 20mm No 3 incannell straight and both use also 20mm No 6 No 3 incannell straight. Cillian said it would be cheaper to buy from Ashley Iles http://turningtools.co.uk/ashleyiles/

Cillian uses sanding blocks 70mm for chanter reeds and 100mm for reg reeds. Allan uses sanding blocks 82mm for chanter reeds and 70 for flat reeds/regulator reed/shaping tails I have the sanding block 43.5mm.

What size of sanding block do any would recommend?