Hi

This is for any reedmakers interested in trying out some Australian reed cane.
I've got surplus from several harvests of local arundo donax, that are in tube form in various sizes from 18 - 25mm.

I've used this successfully in both concert and flat reeds for my own instruments for about 10 years.
I'm now interested in getting other peoples opinions of it.

PM me if interested.

M

How about the hardness? What do you feel? Is it more on the "soft side" like Californian or perhaps more like the stuff for obists (no valuation at all - some UP-reedmakers prefer it for example)?

Hi Hans
Great question. Let me answer it this way;
I was always on the lookout to find a local cane that could emulate the Cal cane I had from Ted Anderson back in the 1990s.
This stuff comes close to that, maybe a bit closer to Medirs product, as regards hardness / workability.
It's main difference from Cal cane is the colour - its much paler than the coffee colour I always saw in Cal cane.

At any rate, if someone is interested I can perform Dayes dunk test, or similar and report back.
M

About 15 years ago I used Australian cane from Reedsaus for GHB and SSP chanter reeds. That stuff was harder than the stuff I was getting from Rigotti, Medir and Madame Ghys - Glotin was nearly as hard. I didn't have a hardness tester at the time so can't give any figures but you had to sharpen your tools more often.
Not sure the company is still trading, I seem to remember it was fairly expensive per kilo, expensive to import and you were limited in the amount you could buy.
It did make good reeds, hard to say if it would make good UP reeds or if this is the same stuff.

Iain

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http://www.bagpipereeds.co.uk/

Iain, et al,
Yes I had the same experience with ReedsAus.

They were in South Australia and growing for the orchestral market. The guy was kind of uninterested when I asked
him about the suitability for dry bagpipe reeds.
I found it much too hard - the parenchyma chipped more like a piece of wood. The bark was so hard you couldn't dent it with a fingernail.
And the cane had to be scraped soooo thin to vibrate that it was like paper thickness.

My stuff is much softer than that. Again, lots of subjectivity in this, and cane is variable of course, hence the idea of
sending samples to people and getting their opinion.

M

Yes, they were very much orchestral orientated.
I'm interested in some of your samples. I'll PM you.

Iain

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http://www.bagpipereeds.co.uk/