Just a short note:
I’ve been a staunch user of copper bridles. I think the first wire bridle I saw was on a Rogge reed. Then I saw how Jim Wenham uses them (“standard” position; just abv. the wrap). Pipe maker Tom Aebi too, who makes superb reeds, does so with the wire bridle 18mm down from the lips. Like Jim Wenham, Japanese pipemaker Makoto (yet another great reed maker), uses the wire bridle just above the wrap. Recently, I’ve seen a few Benedict Koehler reeds with wire bridles considerable above the wraps.
wire bridles positioned some millimeters above the wraps can be a work around of dealing with narrow throated chanters, and their propensity to eat the back d. However, there’s way more to this than I’m writing
I find all this interesting, so with all this wire flying about… I too revisited the wire. I started trying to make wire bridled reeds some time back. They were a real mind bender , as everything I knew changed when running the wire above the wrap. So much so, I went back to the copper bridle above the wrap. Now, with a deeper understanding (or so I think), I went back to experiment.
Without listing all of the changes (and there are quite a few), I think it’s worth the time invested for reed makers to experiment w. wire if you use copper exclusively, and vise versa. There can be certain instances when wire can get you out of a bind e.g., make a “bad reed, good.” One example would be the affects wire can have on strengthening the back d in a way a copper strip won’t, of course depending on placement (yes there are other affects, so it’s not a silver bullet, quick fix- but it may be in certain instances:-).
