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reed making, may help someone

Author: EaubeauHorn
Date: 2018-12-08 21:35

After literally years of trying and several reed making teachers, I was a complete failure and could not even adjust a reed. In fact, that was what I *most* could not do, was the end point adjustment. So there was no point buying nearly finished reeds because I couldn't adjust them. Every single one I touched, I wrecked totally. I could get easily to the point of having a well-sealed blank (starting with gouged cane,) but after that....nuttin. Failure after failure after FAILURE. And all messed up in pretty much the same way no matter how hard I tried. I basically gave up trying to play because of not being able to adjust bought reeds either.

Then, in my continuing quest to learn, I bought the Weber book on reed making, and it just happened to have a section on knife sharpening that had that ONE tidbit of information I was lacking all this time. It must be one of those "obvious" things that doesn't "need" to be taught. That was that the very edge of the blade has a wedge shape of its own. I had NO IDEA that this was how the edge of the blade was supposed to look; all this time (years, literally, and with several teachers showing me how to make reeds) I was trying to have a knife edge that was a steady taper from the thick side of the blade, on both sides, to get the edge. People showed me how they sharpened but it never made any sense to me because they never said what they were doing in terms of the actual "wedge on the edge, so I wasn't successful with their methods either. Only in the Weber book was it said what the actual edge needed to look like. Apparently too obvious to teach by anyone else.

I finally am not trying to make reeds with the edge equivalent of a butter knife and absolutely instantly have been able to do the fine adjustments that I thought I didn't understand but instead simply did not have the proper tool. I'd always take chips out of the tips, have to push hard with the knife, and none of the supposed teachers taught me the concept of what the shape of the edge of the knife was supposed to look like. SHEESH.

I also got a sharpening steel, and my kitchen knives are also deadly now.

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