G’day guys,
I am of the understanding that larger internal diameters in staples yield a shaper second octave (often progressively sharper so that A’ and B’ stand out as particularly sharp). However, I have recently switched to larger staples and soft cane, resulting in losing my high notes entirely and wondered if anyone had any suggestions for remedying this.
I bought some cane, ready-tie slips and staples from Brian Howard (Howard Music) as his cane is soft and his staples have a larger I.D than mine (4.3mm instead of 4mm), which I believed would fix my often flat A’ and B’. However, after making two ready-tie reeds and three reeds using my own dimentions, I’ve been unable to get anything above A in the second octave. I’ve tried both narrowing and enlarging the staple’s 1.6mm eye, different staple insersions, various bridle positions and scrape shapes, but found no joy. I’ve made a blank using the soft cane with one of my own narrow staples, but will need to wait a few days before I can see what it achieves (days of cane resting)
Does anyone have any suggestions about what else to try - Is it the soft cane or the wider/shorter staple that is causing problems? (incase you need to know, the Howard staple is 48mm long and my staples are 50mm)
Hi Goldie,
I’ve been using Brians kits since he introduced them. My experience is only with Brians chanters and my Wooff C#. You don’t mention which chanter you are having problems with. The only time I have been unable to reach the octave with a reed made from Brians slips is if I sand the scrape too much. Leave the staple exactly as it is ( they are the best I’ve come across by a very wide margin) and tie the slips to make an overall length of 80mm. Only trim the lips so they are straight and only sand enough across the whole scrape until the reed gives you the crow you need. ( it is very easy to overdo this bit!) If you go too far just take as little as you can off the tips again and this should bring things back to a more stable sound. I have watched Brian making reeds a lot and the biggest lesson I have learned is to take it easy and use light hands. Good luck and let us know how you get on.
Tierw,
Thanks for your feedback. I play a ‘Simack’ chanter (Ian Mackenzie), which has a good reputation. I have always made reeds using his stapes and harder cane, and have always obtained all notes through to the top D. I’ve had consistently flat back D’s and often a flat octave, which is why I wanted to try the larger diameter staples, which don’t need as deep an insersion (especially when combined with soft cane).
I’ll keep trying with the staples. Maybe I haven’t yet adjusted to soft cane and am still scraping like I’m using hard cane (really wide and deep).
Goldy, I’ve used a Gallagher reed on my Mackenzie chanter with no ill effects. I think the tubing Gallagher uses is the next diameter larger than Ian’s. I haven’t compared the length or width.
Tony,
Thanks Tono-(what you would be called in Austalia). It’s looking more like my problem perhaps lies with my scrape shape, although the ready-tie slips, which came already scraped by Brian Howard gave the same problems
Perhaps I need to go back to harder cane :roll: (I’ve heard that Seth Gallagher prefers hard cane too). I’ll keep experimenting with the soft cane though, as I like the softer tone it produces. I’ll also (reluctantly) try playing-in a problem reed for a few weeks to see if the notes become obtainable.
Goldy, are you leaving the lips a little thicker than you otherwise might when using the softer cane? That will affect the tuning as well a bit not to mention the stability of the back D.
Brian,
Thanks for offering some advice. I have been making the lips thicker than before to account for the new softer cane. I found Evertjan Hart’s suggested 0.25mm thickness too thin on the first reed as it made back D very pressure sensitive so I’ve been going for something between 0.3 and 0.35mm on all other reeds - I do tend to thin the corners a bit more though (to ensure the sides close before the centre when air passes through it).
I think my main problem with reed making in general is getting caught up in achieving perfect symmetry in the scrape shape in the hope of obtaining a flawlessly symmetrical lip opening, which has me widening a little on the left then a little on the right (and so on) until the ‘V’ becomes a beautiful looking ‘U’ - This worked fine on my hard cane reeds, but this soft cane won’t stand for it. Such a shape yields a reed that plays heaps below concert pitch and has a back C# instead of a back D requiring a fair bit of trimming to undo. I’ll continue trying to get a shape like I’ve seen in pictures on the internet and maybe the resultant stiffer reed will allow for those high notes to hold.
With the softer stuff, are you finding that the scrape must be a V shape in order to work at all? What’s the length of the scrape itself that’s working for you? Mine (using Gallagher’s harder slips) is between about .8 and .93" or so. My Murray chanter is somewhat forgiving (I think) as to the length of the scrape, depending on other variables, but I’m having a bugger of a time working out the golden staple measurements!
I’ll keep watching this thread with interest as to what you find out. Best of luck!
Brian,
Thanks to Evertjan Hart’s inch/mm converter on his reed database, I can tell you that my scrape length has been 0.86" (22mm) for a while now (on hard cane reeds).
With the softer stuff, are you finding that the scrape must be a V shape in order to work at all?
That’s something that I’m trying to suss out at the moment. When I’ve sanded a neat V of 22mm on an 80mm (3.15") blank and tried paying it, back D is flat, the payability difficult, and hard D works great (but sharp). When I trim the reed shorter to bring in the back D, a gurgle is introduced on bottom D so I widen the base of the scrape into a ‘U’ shape (that’s what the theory out there says to do to eliminate gurgles and improve playability). This procedure invariably flattens back D and so the process repeats over and over until I’m left with a stump. Kieth Powell said that the scrape should be no longer than 19mm (0.75") (p. 17 in the Climo ‘Reed making for uilleann pipers’ book). http://www.swaup.org/. I’ve found that the pitch of a reed is lowered when a scrape is made longer or wider so I guess that if the length was lessened, you could get away with making it wider too. I suppose the advantages of this are that the ‘U’ shape would help the bottom D and the shorter length would keep the back D strong, plus the extra bark below the scrape would maintain reed integrity. Therefore, I guess a shorter ‘U’ shaped scrape needs to be added to my long list of planned experiments.
I’ll put something into the forum if I find that magic relationship between length and width.
Goldy.
OK, so I decided to pull apart my Pat Murray reed last night, and found out a very interesting fact. I’ve been using staples with a taper length of approx 26 - 26.5mm. Upon measureing Pat’s staple, his taper was 36mm long! Quite a difference. As I understand it, lengthening the taper will also help to flatten the second octave notes (which I’ve had some trouble with as some remember). So I’m going to try again, with a slightly widened eye, probably about .07" and extend my taper down an extra 10mm and see what happens on the next one here.
An update on my staples form Brian Howard (now with an eye of 1.7mm).
I have cauciously made a reed with a very strict narrow 22mm ‘V’ (the slip was 1.1mm in the centre and 0.3 at the edges due to a 50mm sanding block - The slip was finished on 800 grit sandpaper for brightness of tone). I bridled it and tried it in my chanter and was able to get the high notes at high air pressure. I was happy to have an extremely sharp back D and no gurgle on bottom D. I slowly thinned just the edges of the scrape region with a knife and found that everything was playing nicely except for a weak and flat back D (must have thinned too much). Trimming the reed has now introduced the infamous gurgle so I’ll leave it a day for stresses to settle and see how I go.
It just goes to show that the gentlest of stokes on the edges can turn a blaring and difficult reed into an overly soft reed. That’s my lesson for the day.
However, this reed has demonstrated to me that the problems with the high notes probably arose from the reed head rather than the staple.
Make sure you aren’t thinning the center of the scrape too much. If you loose the proper thickness there in relation to the rest of the reed, it will kill your second octave.
Thanks for the tip Brian. I have been very careful of the centreline for the past year as I used to always overthin it. I think that must have been the problem with the ‘ready-tie slips’ I tried. It seems I am just now getting the hang of not overscraping the reed as a whole - (a year to learn each lesson probably equates to about 25 stuffed up reeds each year before I get the message).
There’s a fine line between scraping for a quieter reed and scraping to bugger up a nicely tuned loud reed. - I hope to be able to balance on that fine line soon.
Is this a rolled staple or hobby tubing? It sounds like you need more of a taper on the staple, or need to “rush” the upper part of the staple/eye area.
I think you thinned the center line of the head too much. The center line must be thicker than the edges. Save that one for a regulator reed and make another head, making sure you avoid the centerline more than the last attempt.
Fancypiper,
Thanks for your input. The staple is made from brass tubing. My last reed hit those high notes and was able to go to the top D when warmed up. I think that I over thinned the centre line on the ‘ready-tie’ reeds, but was careful with the others so I dunno what the problem was.
My last reed (as per previous post on Jan 6) was so damn bright that I’ve decided that my new focus is on dulling the tone. Therefore, I’ve found a 66mm spray can (instead of 50mm) to get the right final lip opening, thickened the edges to 0.45mm from the 0.3 and kept that 800 grit sandpaper for the next respraying of my motorbike. I am also going to be trying that shorter and wider scrape fo 19mm too.
My most recent attempt split on me at the last moment as I was fitting the bridle to the slips…so I can’t tell you how the latest experiment went apart from that. I’ve got a new pair of slips cut and tied though, and I hope to work on the scrape later this evening after work. I used the same design as the “good” reed I made (the good reed still had second octave tuning problems though…) so we’ll see if I can reproduce anything worth a darn again.
Kept my staple dimensions the same, and will try altering the scrape on the next round here. We’ll see what it does.
