Author: jhoyla
Date: 2008-12-30 08:23
I was never able to successfully adjust the European scrape - I moved to the much-easier-to-adjust American scrape long before I became proficient at reedmaking. Nevertheless IMHO it seems to me that there are universal truths that are true for all styles of reedmaking. Here goes:
1. BEFORE you try scraping a reed that is too hard, SQUEEZE IT DOWN and try again. Go and see Kerry Willingham's squeezing down a reed video, and try it. The reed must be completely soaked (up to the thread) and you MUST use a plaque. Use a convex plaque to start with, if you are scared of cracking the reed.
2. Yup, you guessed it - sharpen your knife! Don't go anywhere near a reed with a dull blade.
3. A lot of your reeds will never work - and never would have worked, whoever tried scraping them! If you get 30% of your reeds to a decent, playable condition you are doing really, really well. Don't be disheartened, and give up early if a reed seems to be unworkable. Either trash it, or stick it in a drawer and move on (perhaps, one rainy day in the future when you are a professional reedmaker, you will be able to make something out of it).
4. Always choose the best, most promising blank to start with.
5. Balance. There are four quadrants to a reed, and they should be as close to "exactly the same" as is physically possible. Use any/all tools to judge this - flexing a wet, black plaque, back-lighting, even a micrometer and notebook. Balance is the key.
6. No hills and valleys. Within the confines of the lay you choose, there should be no unplanned hills or valleys. this is essential for the outer and inner tip areas, but important for the whole reed. Balance the reed again once you have removed any hills and valleys!
7. My final finishing strokes often seem to be to thin the corners - this seems to unify and sweeten the whole reed. Sharpen your knife, then dust each corner, blending back into the inner tip. If after all this the reed is still too hard I dust the heart - REALLY carefully. "Dust" is absolutely the right verb here.
I have no idea if this "theory" is absolute truth, but thinking in these terms helps me with my reedmaking:
Vibrations in the reed should travel from the tip, through the heart, back and into the staple along the axis of the spine. If there are areas that are unbalanced or if there are hills and valleys, secondary vibrations will start in the reed. These are what cause the more raucous, quacky sounds. Removing the hills and valleys will encourage the primary vibrations and discourage the secondary vibrations. Balancing the quadrants encourages the primary vibrations and discourages the secondary vibrations. Thinning the corners, ditto. The reed is a unified whole.
Sharpen your knife,
J.
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