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Re: Tieing length variables

Author: Craig Matovich
Date: 2007-01-06 15:25

Oh, yeah.... answers to my own questions...

I use 46 mm staples and a Brannon X shaper.

For the past 25 years, I've gouged my own cane or 're-gouged' cane I bought gouged that came in too thick or assymetrical. I think taking control over this aspect of reed making increased my useful productivity more than anything. (An aside, for VBOBOE who is not doing this yet. Before that getting one good reed per 15 tries was driving me a bit crazy! At least the Army was buying the miserable misbegotten cane I was using back then...)

I tend to tie to close and adjust the reed placement on the staple until I'm in that neighborhood. I tie right-handed use a slight right-handed overlap with bottom blade peeking around the left side of the top blade when viewed from the front.

If I find tips too closed using certain cane, usually wider diameter cane, I let the cane close earlier on the tube, 3 - 4 winds, but then continue to wind to within a turn of the end of the staple.

I wind with the thread very tensioned all the way to the cork. Different thread colors for me identify different batches of cane I've stashed away over the years.

Past couple years I started winding a few turns of thread low, about 12 turns from staple end, then turn the mandrel so the cane winds/works it way up the staple. As each side passes in view I can see if the cane is closing equally on both sides. Once happy with the closure, I verify the alignment, estimate if the fold is parallel to the oblong staple opening
(meaning will divied it equally when later viewed down the staple from the large end).

Once tied, I do some scraping and clip open the tip, and allow the reed to dry before proceeding.

I have varied my initial scrape several ways. Sometimes just rough scrape the tip and lay and open. This for cane tending to produce a closed tip.

I tired to scrape tip and heart and clip open, but find later putting the back in the reed looks like one of the Mack pictures, as if the reed were made with a chain saw. ( Some cane seems to like this...)

Now I'm, getting best results by roughing the tip and adding preliminary, very smooth channels from back though heart up to the tip. Not a lot of cane is removed, but I can really get good definition of rails and the spine going. Then clip dry and wait for later...

For some reason, using tha technique I also get finished reeds a bit longer, like the tone better and the low range stays up to pitch better.

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