| Brought to you this hour by |  | Advertising and Web Hosting on Woodwind.Org! |
Doublereed Archive - Posting 000034.txt from 2007/02
From: "Edward B. Flowers" <flowerse@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [DR-L] Scraping with nicks
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:56:28 -0500
Sameer,
I use the medium Landwell too. I only have to sharpen it about once a
month. And I make a lot of reeds.
I sharpen it with the easy-to-use white ceramic sticks, ending off with
some up-strokes on the left hand stick to curl the burr to the right
(I'm right-handed). Then I finish off by using the steel to smooth out
the burr and set the angle of the burr.
The medium Landwell is a very hard knife and the burr should last at
least a week. All you have to do is smooth it and redirect it with the
steel.
I'd be willing to bet that you haven't felt for the burr with your
thumbnail and made certain that it's pointing the right direction and in
the right degree. You shouldn't guess about this. The direction and
angle of the burr is very important.
All of this business about sanding the tip is the "wrong stuff." With a
very sharp Landwell knife, you should hold the blade almost flat to the
reed and simply slice off tiny lumps and pieces of cane on the very tip
of the tip to get a good, responsive reed. On the right and left hand
quadrants of the tip, you would scrape the reed, with little curls of
cane being peeled off by the forward-curled burr.
It may take a some practice to learn how to do these things, but once
you know how, it's quick and easy.
Edward B. Flowers (ob)
New York City
Sameer Al-Abdullah wrote:
> I had no idea we could do that to the tip with the sand paper. I shall
> give it a shot for sure. I always wondered why most of the reeds i
> used to buy look so smoothed out!
>
> "One needs only the VERY lightest touch for tips "
> After scraping the bark off the tip and as I get it thinner and
> thinner I noticed that it gets harder removing equal amounts of fibers
> of it. That's where my frustration comes from since I find myself
> having to either press more with the knife rather than itching or go
> back to the kitchen and resharpen the knife!! It also gets pretty
> harder when I try to define the tip by scraping in angles to create
> the blend. Scraping upward in a straight line towards the tip of the
> tip thru the channels is somehow easy but then I can't get the somehow
> "half circle" definition of the blend!
>
> Scraping the tip when it's dry does the job but then it's too risky as
> I did manage to crack the tip a few times.
>
> Edward, I have the medium Landwell. AND I just got Daryl Caswell book
> on sharpening the Landwell knives. I followed the instructions and I
> must say that it DOES get the knife sharp. BUT and this is the strange
> part, i'd lose the burr quickly as if i'm using a soft knife!
>
> Why can't some genius invent a knife that is 100% sharp and stays
> sharp all the time! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr..........i've reached a point
> where I'm sharpening my knife and scraping reeds in my dreams!!!! No
> wonder my shoulder aches in the morning!!
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Sam
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> It's the Woodwind.Org 2007 donation drive!
> Visit https://secure.donax-us.com/donations/ for more information
> For personal help: email doublereed-owner@-----.org
> Doublereed is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org
>
>
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
It's the Woodwind.Org 2007 donation drive!
Visit https://secure.donax-us.com/donations/ for more information
For personal help: email doublereed-owner@-----.org
Doublereed is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org
