Reed ques: Where taper begins on staple

Uilleann Pipes
1

Made my first staples this time around… brass tubing … however, I inadvertantly hammered the shape around the mandrel such that the taper starts farther down the staple than staples I have made by someone else.

These reeds all have a problem in common: the bottom E and D will only play in the second octave. Isn’t that odd?

Could the shape of the staple have caused this? The reeds appear otherwise shaped properly.

Thanks
Dave Jones

2

What reedmaking books are you using to guide you in your efforts?

djm

3

I have a nice variety of manuals: Pat Skye’s, Childress’ guide (Childress chanter), NPU manual, and some nice printed off web sites of various sorts. Lots of info about reed shape and such. Not much on staple taper.

I just finished a “batch” of about 10 survivors … started out as 23 or so cane slips last weekend and through cracking and mis-cuts and such I have 4 truly “A+” reeds, 2 with only a sharp back D, and these bizarre 4 that play second octave on bottom D and E…

DJones

4

If you do a Search on the string “staple and taper” you will find lots of tidbits to guide you. No-one seems to have found the perfect formula. Instead, treat this as one more variable to find what suits your particular chanter plus your way of making reeds.

djm

5

I am learning to make reeds for my Gallagher chanter so obviously Seth’s meaurements are bound to the right way to go for me. His staple dimensions are pretty precise including where he starts the taper so they might be worth a look:

http://www.uilleann.com/reeds.html

6

Heya Simon,

This has been the only information I could ever find on Seth’s site relating to where exactly to start or end the taper:

“Taper this squashed area back to about halfway from the top end.”

Needless to say, that doesn’t really offer much insight or an accurate highly reproduceable measure.

See, the thing with a rolled staple is that the entire thing is tapered, because you are using a trapezoidal piece of metal to begin with.

So no matter what you do - in the end you’ll always end up with a full length conical taper from end to end. The formation of the eye of the staple seems to be as much for tying the reed on as anything else in that case.

When you think about it, if you’re using tubing, and you hammer one end into an eye shape, you’re not really changing much of the internal volume - but more so the dimensions. Going from round to oval. But you still have the same amount of material at the top of the staple as you do at the bottom (meaning circumferance). And therefore the inner volume won’t have changed much either. IE: you’re moving material out of round and pushing it into the corners. Some changes will no doubt occur, but the big advantage with rolled staple design seems to be the continual taper the entire length of the staple.

At any rate, unless you’re able to talk at length with your pipemaker, or better yet, pay them a visit and ask to watch them put a staple together for you, experimentation is the best tool you’ll have.

7

It also helps to have an eye-shaping mandrel to wrap your copper around, and eventually use when tying the reed head onto the finished staple.

8

Very true. Trying to tie on using a round mandrel would be…silly. :wink:

9

I’ve also been using the staple from a defunct reed as a model. I also have a tapered mandrel from Seth, so I am assuming that I am fairly close. However, you’re exactly right, Brian, the point at which the flatenning starts is approximate and even with the ‘correct’ mandrel there’s room for variation.

10

The circumference won’t have changed (unless some stretching occurs), but the inner volume/area will. The area of an ellipse is smaller than the area of a circle of the same circumference. You can prove this to yourself without resorting to the math with this “thought experiment”:

  1. imagine a circular tube, pipe, of bit of string;
  2. make the “flattest” possible ellipse from it;
  3. this is in effect two straight sections, i.e. you have pressed your tube totally flat, its width is now half the circumference and its thickness is zero. Its area is now zero.

So in between, it follows that the area shrinks from its maximum for a circular pipe, to a minimum of zero when the pipe is flattened.

Bill

11

I find it easier to shape the taper in a small vice with the mandril in it,then finish it with a light hammer to finish the shape,a medium clockmakers hammer is good for the job,the taper can start on a concert reed from 22mm-25mm in length, I don’t find a lot difference,but keep the taper nice and even as it reduces to the eye, the eye height is more crucial. :wink: