 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-01-21 22:07
A little discussion on reed economics.
Gouged cane costs $1.80 - $2.30 a piece, less for larger quantities.
So say you make a reed a day, 5 days a week like I do and 50 weeks a year.
At $2.00 a piece for gouged cane, that is $500 per year.
Say you play oboe for 20 years doing this. Thats $10,000.00 for cane.
If you equip yourself with a gouger, cane splitter, guillotine, pre-gouger, and shaper, that will set you back around $2,000. One time.
Cane runs around $140 per pound and usually yields around 250 useful pieces.
So, you will need 2 pounds a year @ $240 and that is a recurring cost.
Savings of $260 per year will pay off the gouger and stuff in under 8 years.
In 20 years, its a $3120 difference in savings. That is just the cash. Really good things started to happen for me once I started gouging. Find a good crop of cane, buy several more pounds (invest part of the $3120 bank) and stockpile for future use.
Get several pounds ahead, then keep buying from new sources if others verify good results.
I did that for 20 + years and now only buy oboe cane once in a while.
Gouging and shaping are not hard, and don't take much time. There are other costs, such as blade sharpening services now and then and I do not account for inflation in cane in this simple model, or lost potential interest gains for the investment $. But, I have found this whole adventure very rewarding and a huge benefit to quality results in my reed making.
(Unlike my FB rants, this does not need to be read in the tone of Lewis Black) ![[toast]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley15.gif)
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Author: johnt
Date: 2011-01-21 23:32
So what kind of stuff (gouger, cane splitter, guillotine, pre-gouger, and shaper) do you have, Craig?
I bought my Dan Ross gouger back in 2006 for $800 & haven't looked back. I use his old-school planer & arrowhead splitter. Rigotti tube cane @ $55 per pound (10.5-11.0 mm diameter) or David Weber's Grimaud. Shape is David Weber's 1B. I'm a happy camper, what with my Neilsen wedgie sharpened to a fare-thee-well on sandpaper affixed to plate glass & stropped on copper oxide impregnated leather,causing it to all come together. I make three or four reeds a week; more during concert season which starts next week.
Thanks for the research.
Best,
john
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-01-21 23:51
John,
I use the old arrow splitter and separate guillotine from an old Graf setup I bought from Covey while in school in 1978, and now use a RGD gouger with 11 mm bed.
My Brannon-X shaper I've had since early college days in 1974. Its the only shaper I have used. No need to mess with success, eh?
The RDG gouger has a built in guillotine, too , and I just use it right before gouging to trim pre-gouged cane for that setup. Its a tad shorter than the Graf was.
A normal American style .6 mm center gouge setup was done by Raymond Duste at Forrests where I bought the gouger. I have not yet needed to have the blade sharpened, but I still have a lot of Graf-gouged cane on hand and some I re-gouge with the RDG if its thick enough. I mix it in with my reed making. So I probably have only gouged 1000 pieces on the RDG so far. Stats a little skewed because my reed a day only really restarted last May when I retired from corp work.
My cane splitting is done, not for exact radious measures, rather for pretty exact symmetry. You know, follow the rounded triangle of the cane and find symmetrical arcs for the splitting points.
For 10.0 - 10.5 mm cane, I go for the larger diameter portion of the arc, and for 10.5 - 11 mm cane I go for the more pronounced arcs which = narrower diameter results. It levels things out.
Overall, this mitigates the differences in cane and gives me better consistency overall and results in more comfortable reeds.
I know some who try to inspect the tube and use a razor blade to find the one best piece in a tube, but have never really liked that approach. It triples the cost of cane and my results are pretty good my way, such that I get about 1/3 useful reeds overall, and that is with a pretty high quality bar set over the years.
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2011-01-21 23:57
I don't go through as many reeds as you guys.
Besides, I have a tremor, numbness in my hands, a weak grip, and presently, no income.
I RESPECT and ADMIRE you gougers, but I'm not going to venture it myself: you can see why I might be a little shy around sharp-edged machines.
Having said that, I usually get Glotin shaped pieces and now I'm finding them a little too wide. So where can I get something between a Wide and Narrow shape?? Fairly dense cane? Almost affordable? (Maybe that's a different thread, so ignore it if you don't want the dialog to derail...)
GoodWinds
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-01-22 00:17
I have not bought shaped cane since circa 1973, but would think the Forrests top-shel stuff and RDG (Gilbert) stuff would be good. And Stewart Dunkel's cane.
Affordable is another economics lesson though.
If you get only 1 out of 10 useful reeds from a cheap source and 1out of 4 from a more expensive source... you have to do the math, and protect your time investment as intangible costs in the process.
If I could get 1 out of 1 at my standard of expectation, I would be happy to pay $6 for the piece of cane.
And BTW, I really do believe cane sources offer much better quality cane than 30 years ago. Its a good time to be alive as an oboe player.
Aside from costs though, do try to stockpile good cane when you find it.
Gouged or shaped.... no matter. It only gets better with time, and it only gets more expensive later.
-Craig
Post Edited (2011-01-22 00:19)
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-01-22 04:07
Mary,
I am sorry about the tremors and current unemployment.
Your finances are your own to manage and I don't mean to tread on that.
My post was about reed economics at large.
I also have peripheral neuropathy resulting from serious chemo 7 years ago.
Not tremors, but constant pain in hands and feet. A royal PITA.
I want to share something else with you, though. if you can scrape a reed, your hands can easily gouge and shape. The gouger carriage guides it all smoothly and the shaper part (well its does involve close tolerances to fingers and sharp razor blades) can be done by a friend, partner, husband or child. Its really not hard, and just needs to be precise and consistent.
Main thing is, its cheaper.
Now for the funny part.
At conservatory, i bought my Graf gear with 1 month's VA educational benefit check after doing army band oboe a while. The oboe prof could not afford one for himself, and for that matter could not afford a new pair of shoes, and had to use cardboard inserts in his old worn shoes with water leaking in from below through the holes.
I still consider this an inditement of incompetence for the deans and prez' and leaders of the school. How dare they treat their staff so poorly?
And also an indication of the devotion and true love the rest of us harbor for the musical arts and in particular for the oboe.
Hang in... I will. Lets just do the best we can. And keep on helping out each other in the process.
Post Edited (2011-01-22 04:08)
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2011-01-22 17:13
hey thanks for the encouragement, Craig.
Fortunately if one's muscles are working, numb fingers are not the worst for an oboist -- clarinet's harder for me -- but I have found that screw adjustments get out of whack as I tend to apply too much pressure when playing.
I'll keep my antennae posed for quality affordable gougers that cross my path (but probably won't go hunting for them).
In spite of everything I am moving more into music as a mid-life career change. So you can see how your kind words would inspire and help me: if I end up making tons more reeds (which I do enjoy) for myself and fledgling students, then investment in a gouger might be the Right Thing To Do.
Happy playing! I enjoyed the Oxymoro recording.
GoodWinds
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-01-22 21:36
You comment about too much pressure has me thinking a couple things.
If an oboe has well-worn keys, adjustments cannot be fine enough across the complexities of the mechanism to support a light touch. And sometimes the extra finger pressure creeps in and becomes a habit.
Also and out of adjustment oboe can lead to this.
Even one critical key being over-adjusted, such as the f# - g# bridge piece, will cause the whole bottom to balk and bad habits get formed. Likewise, under-adjusted secondary keys (the little ones) work better if you squeeze harder... still, not good.
The pressure, when things are right all around the oboe's adjustment, is really no more than you would use to pick up a grape between your thumb and forefinger.
Depending on your particular oboe, a good repairman can get it close. But I also believe some of the finer adjustments are verified via playing tests. One little extra tweak of the screw and focus is better, things clear up, etc.
If you repair guy is not actually an oboe player, it may be possible to sit there and do the playing tests while the repair person turns the screws. Or even just for the last 15 minutes to get the finer adjustments just right.
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Author: johnt
Date: 2011-01-22 21:52
I just think spitting cane with a razor blade is asking for trouble with possible cut fingers imho; unless chain mail gloves protect the hands. I generally get three decent pieces from each tube, using the arrowhead splitter. It's possible to straighten cane to make a seemingly bad piece into a usable one. Of course you have to be careful with this arrowhead method as well; it helps to rock the splitter three ways to start the cuts. Then a gentle push gets it done. Using a razor blade to shape is much safer in that the shaper tip handle stops the blade from slipping down its length. Gotta be careful around sharp stuff, though.
Rule #1: don't even think of having a restorative while processing cane or scraping reeds.
Best,
john
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-01-22 22:19
Good suggestion about the start of the splitting process.
I used to do it dry, but no more, always well-soaked now.
And I tend to do 1/4 pound or so at a time, get it split, cut to length and pre-gouged in one setting. Then gouge 25 - 30 pieces.
Since I stockpiled and experimented with cane so much over the years I still have a bunch from 1979 - 1981.
Working on that this past week, and getting every reed to work to my standard.
And this cane I considered unusable when I bought it (thus, the experiments - a fun topic for another thread when I think I can stand the ridicule...)
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2011-01-23 00:18
I'm doing well with my new adjustment guides: maybe I'm getting braver in my old age, but it seems that I know when to turn a screw and when to quit, when to really work at practice and when to put the oboe away.
I even got that C' to be less flat...!
Back to gouging...
GoodWinds
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2011-01-23 00:19
a 'restorative' presumably being something with EtOH or mind-altering substance...?
GoodWinds
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2011-01-23 00:21
Sometimes just sitting around one's house in one's own climate for a time can 'mellow' cane... or not. I have inherited cane years old from kind friends, who don't even remember where they got it, and it plays pretty well!
Such a mysterious art, our instrument. So many precious quirks...
GoodWinds
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Author: huboboe
Date: 2011-01-23 00:38
Regulating the mechanism doesn't need to have a rocket scientist of a repair person to accomplish it. Download Brian Seaton's excellent (and free!) Oboe Adjustment Manual in PDF format, do it yourself and save your money to buy cane.
If you play a thumbplate oboe or an automatic octave setup there are a few more adjustments to ask your local repair person about, but the basic stuff that troubles most oboes is beautifully covered.
With just a very little practice you will be able to correct the tiny things that drift out of whack over time in 2 - 3 minutes.
A school instrument which has had a jealous seatmate with a screwdriver attack it might take as long as 5 minutes, but that's another story...
Go on - it's easy!
Robert Hubbard
WestwindDoubleReed.com
1-888-579-6020
bob@westwinddoublereed.com
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-01-23 02:37
I agree, its gets to be very easy with practice.
And a really good non-oboe playing repair person can get it close.
I still think there are a couple adjustments that are better served via playing tests.
Really, only a couple...well, maybe 3 - 5 ...
High c# pitch (1st LH key height)
f# - g# across the bridge.
Forked f resonance pad off the low d keys.
Low or middle octave c# - d#.
Low b - c#.
And # 6 if you have a high-d facilitator... the amount of free play on the low d's inner ring when playing high d.
A very slight looseness Vs. tight seal works best for me. (And this contradicts the advice of my oboe maker's shop!)
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-01-23 12:33
Cooper,
Can you describe what you look for while deciding where the split will be made?
Do you get three pieces per tube?
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