bassoon /bagpipe gouger

[chanterdan]

has anyone used one of these for reed making,its ajustable for different slip sizes.its very pricey. here is the e-mail i received on it. I have at least two solutions for your job, depending on the
accuracy, adjustability and ease of use you require.
The simple solution is to make a modified pre-gouger with
a blade with the correct radius. This will give reasonable
results but limited adjustablility and somewhat limited
accuracy and repeatability.

The professional approach would be a real gouger.
The Bassoon/Bagpipe Gouger is a hand built precision tool with
micrometer gouge thickness adjustability, and you can
choose almost any combimation of bed length/width. It is
built on linear bearings and is suitable for production work.

I've sent a second mail with a picture, in case your ISP is
finicky about attachments.

Please let me know if you are interested or have any further questions.
You can also call me at +358 41 592 912 if you prefer.

Best Wishes & Greetings from Finland
Harri Joy
TAs Machine Tools Ltd

[Joseph E. Smith]

If it can be set up for uilleann chanter reeds, flat and concert, I'll bet it could be real handy. What was the price tag on this specimen?

[chanterdan]

over thousand euros i think,still waiting on a return e-mail for a price.here is the link.would be good for your reed making buisness,and save all that sanding.would be ajustable,12.6 to 13mm,and could be custom made for your needs.i just ordered a new gouge from npu,and waiting for delivery,but thought this was cool. http://www.ta-machines.com/english/pricelist.html

[chanterdan]

there is also a reed tip chopper on this machine for clipping the end.i guess the slip is placed in the machine after being wet with water before gouging.there is also a profileing machine that could make the scrape.every reed would be perfectly the same,and could ajusted according to cane hardness .would have to be reseached further before investing that much money.i have seen one of these on e-bay recently,but it was for oboe,not bassoon.could handle slips 100mm to 120mm.could this work for uilleann piper's?,sure think its worth checking out.

[chanterdan]

wonder if burton,or moller could shed some light on this.

[billh]

I believe there have been articles in The Pipers' Review in the past, about modification to bassoon reed gouging and profiling machinery for UP reedmaking. I think the basic gouges and scrapes for the instruments differ in their geometry, so it's not clear that you could use these machines to obtain the "traditional" style UP scrape.

The gouging machine might be something that could be set up usefully, but it would only take your slips to the gouged stage. A bassoon reed profiler will basically scrape the outside too, but modern bassoon scrapes extend all the way across the reed head, i.e. there's no bark strip left on the sides of the reed.

Bear in mind that you'd end up with one radius for all reeds, which may or may not suit.

Bill

[Tony]

I played oboe in the school symphony. We had a reed duplicator machine. It worked similar to a key grinding machine. You put the good slip (that you want to copy) in one bed and the un-trimmed slip in the other. They had adjustments for thicker or thinner cuts if you wanted... but it ended up making a new slip in the same shape as the original.
This is NOT rocket science. It did oboe, bassoon, saxophone, clarinet reeds. The beds were interchangeable for the various reeds. I'm sure it could copy Uilleann pre-gouged and partly scraped slips... that would get you 95% to a finished reed shape.

[No E]

One of our local pipers is a professional bassoonist and has all the gear associated with churning out bassoon reeds in volume. He was using a profiling rig like the one pictured for uilleann pipe reeds for awhile, but found he got better results using more traditional methods. He does have and use a nifty pre-gouger, which saves a bit of time and effort.

No E

[simonknight]

I've played the bassoon for a number of years and make my own reeds. I don't make enough to warrant the expense of a gouger and a profiler so I buy my cane gouged, shaped and profiled.

The standard German bassoon gouge gives a slip of about 1.5mm thick, even accross the whole slip. A French gouge is more like a UP slip in that it tapers towards the edges - i.e. the inner radius is larger than the outer.

The aim of the profiler is to get the reed close to the finsihed profile while leaving enough room for manual scraping to allow adjustment for variation in cane and tailoring a standard reed to a specific instrument.

I've tried making a UP reed from gouged bassoon cane and it's perfectly possible but they cost $2 each so I prefer to gouge them by hand. It doesn't take that long.

There are a number of basoon reed profiles commonly used. They vary in the steepness of the profile longtitudinaly, the presence of spine, and occasionally pits and grooves. The more complex profiles require multiples passes with different blades.

Take a look at this site if your interested in the architecture of the modern bassoon reed: http://www.pbreeds.com/

The bassoon reed has to produce three different registers and is damped by the players embouchre (lip) so they don't behave quite like a UP reed. I'd say overall the regions that affect different notes are more commonly agreed and documented.

[uilleannfinlander]

Chris Apps GHB reed maker uses these machines.

[PJ]

Hmmm... $1,000 for one of these gadgets or about $2.25 for a piece of PVC pipe and some sandpaper ... A tough decision.

[Tony]

Hmmm... $1,000 for one of these gadgets or about $2.25 for a piece of PVC pipe and some sandpaper ... A tough decision.

Don't think of it as dollars and cents... think of it as good sense!

If your trade is reedmaker, you should be able to copy existing (working) reeds very quickly without the need for micrometers and gauges.

Let's say you went to a tionol and someone had one of these setup with different templates for various makers reeds and they could quickly duplicate correctly gouged and shaped slips requiring only minimal scraping... would you buy some slips if they were $10 each?

[PJ]

I see the sense for a professional or semipro reedmaker to have one of these. However, I make about 20 reeds per year so I'll just keep plodding along with my sandpaper and pvc tubing.

I would certainly buy a 2 or 3 pre-scrape slips to see how they work, but my personal consumption of reeds would never justify the investment of buying the gadget in question.

[Tony]

I see the sense for a professional or semipro reedmaker to have one of these. However, I make about 20 reeds per year so I'll just keep plodding along with my sandpaper and pvc tubing.

I would certainly buy a 2 or 3 pre-scrape slips to see how they work, but my personal consumption of reeds would never justify the investment of buying the gadget in question.

Agreed...
However a club, especially one with a large number of students, or a pipemaker could benefit from a tool like this.

[Christopher]

Well,
it only takes a minute with gauge, tube and sandpaper.
And most reedmakers are way faster than I.