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Re: Wire Again!

Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2012-01-06 23:43

So, I wired an oboe reed today, because the tip was too closed.

Used 2 wraps, like I do on ehorn reeds, with 22 gauge brass wire and as usual it won't hold its place.

On cor reeds I position the wire where it sounds best then add a wrapping of teflon tape and that keeps the wire where I want it. (Otherwise it slips down when the reeds dry out.)

In the case of today's oboe reed, each time I bent the trailing wire down, it caused the wire to stretch or loosen around the reed and it would not hold its place. So, I re-tensioned it... and repeated probably 3 times.

A few rounds of this and the wire ended up just beyond the staple's end.

Then a little squeeze of the pliers on the side of the wire to open the reed. (Very little pressure, and the darned reed improved.)

It definitely has a different quality in some regards, more air support was needed for good responce, in particular, but I could adjust to it easily in a couple minutes and so now have to really think about this.

I will also try a single wrap next round as your pics show.

Anyway, the wire stuff has worked for me on cor reeds, but always remained a bit mysterious due to the popular advice that the wire would not be used to control tip openings and that it's purpose is to create a certain resonance and tone center for english horn. (See Weber reed manual...)

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