Author: jhoyla
Date: 2017-12-26 12:14
There is a whole science here, and maybe Bob Hubbard of Westwind will weigh-in here. Just measuring the width of the shaper tip under the ears is only part of the story.
The best way to figure out the essential lines of a shape, IMHO, is first to work out where the top of the thread would lie. That is usually around 3.7 mm width. From there, you need to figure out how long your final blade length would be - usually, 23 mm or so. The width at THAT point is the width of your reed, but that is not the whole story!
The more "flared" the reed is, the tighter it will seal - a gross generalization, I know, but you can do the mental experiment of trying to seal a shape with perfectly parallel sides to see why. The outside curvature and wall-thickness of the staple tip, together with the angle it subtends to the blades, are also large factors here.
Flared reeds don't sound as good as ones with a bit of "belly" to the shape, but these are harder to seal perfectly to the tip. leaky reeds do not play well.
One final point; The easier a reed plays, the better you will sound - even at the expense of tone. Music is always the whole package, not just an ethereal sound.
J.
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