A Quick Lesson In Reed Making

The #1 question asked to me of non-musicians is, "What is a bassoon?" (except they usually say bazzoon, even though I've just said it the proper way before... don't ask me why). The #1 question asked by people who know a little bit about music, is "You make your own reeds?! Can't you buy them at the store?! Is it difficult/expensive?!" Well my friends, to the 85% of you who have ever asked, strap on your seat belts for a thrilling tour of parts one and two of the four-five reed making process (complete with pictures!).

It all starts with the phenomenal book written by James R. McKay, the reed King (and my professor... he goes by Jim). He learned his techniques from the reed King previous to him, Lou Skinner... a geek who developed a method to record how to make reeds and based a more common technique on the famous bassoonists of his day).

So step one is ordering the cane. A piece of cane goes for about $1.30USD. I order mine from "Custom Cane" in Tabernacle, NJ (isn't that a cool name for a place!). The guy that cuts it gets it in its tubular shape (think of a giant piece of bamboo) and then cuts it into 4s and then makes it the right lengths and thicknesses using a method unknown to me. Anyhoo, I like "1.30mm, 0.051 thick eccentric gouged Donati" cane. This is what it looks like when it arrives (there are 10 pieces bundled together with masking tape).

Next, you place it in water and wait until it sinks... the book says this takes about 24hours... it takes about 70+ for me...

Next, I place it on expensive machine #1: the profiler. Profilers cost several hundreds of dollars, and it is not unusual for them to be worth over a thousand. Probably needless to say, but I do not own one, but use one from the school. When God gives me $600+ or a profiler altogether, that's when I will own my own :P... Anyhoo, 1st you bound it to the handle like this (two pictures of the same thing):

And then you place the handle in the expensive profiler contraption, exert a lot of effort moving that black handle back and forth 50-100 times to take the shiny coating of the middle part of the cane... this is extra fun because keep in mind that the cane is wet therefore your hands are wet... I am surprised there aren't more injuries from this!

After all that effort and waiting a gadzillion hours for the cane to sink, you put the profiled cane on a piece of one-inch dowelling (thank you Home Depot... something like <$5) and let it dry for about three-five days. This is a picture of some pieces drying in the sun:

Next comes the step I always forget and than wonder why the tube is weird... This is an optional variation, but I've found it rather helpful to reduce angry moments with my prof (he always does this)... Anyhoo this is the "Charleston" or "Loonie" variation (my bet is they developed it at Charleston Lake)... Basically with a 1" scraper (expensive tool #3!) you more or less scrap three strokes in each direction, on the inside, from a 50-mm mark. This is repeated from a 43-mm mark. This is what the scraper looks like, and no I don't know where you can get one (except for McKay), or how much I payed for it:

After sanding everything and making it a mess, now comes the part where you're most likely to butcher the reed -- yes, even after having it in your mind for over a week...We move on to expensive tool #4: the shaper. I use a Fox #2 (c. $170CD?) but supposedly the more expensive Prestini Knochenhauer or Pisano #2 work ok too. Using a fancy-pancy Exacto knife (#11 blade!... the one I use is from Staples and has a comfortable handle), you "feather" the cane from the middle of the shaper to JUST where the shaper starts to flare out at the end. You then feather from the end to where you stopped... Often times, I end up getting too carried away and feather too far from the middle and end up taking cane out from inside the shaper... this is not good because later the reed will leak (sound really airy). 99% of my reeds nowadays are salvageable even when I make this mistake, but two years ago, I ruined 60-70% of my reeds this way :) Go me and being impatient sometimes! Here's a close-up of the "feathering" as well as what the shaper looks like:

When all the feathering is done, I sand the edges with 200 sand paper so that I'm sure that the cane is the right shape. Theoretically, it should look like this!:

Next comes the part where you're first likely to stab yourself in the process: marking 8, 18, 26, and 30-mm from the "butt ends" using a compass. Then you reinforce them with a knife whilst the cane is laying on the dowelling (to prevent slippage). I use an actual steak knife for this process because it's a) cheap and b) means I don't have to sharpen my $100 reed knife as often. Here's me having at 'er with the protractor and the steak knife:

Next comes more wheel-y fun doing a "pilot" cut with the smaller end of the wheel. Basically you drag it across the inside of the cane, from 32-mm, and remove about 0.10mm from each "butt end." Here's our friend, the wheel again:

Next comes one of the artistic parts for the reed-making process... you will be judged by your friends on how pretty this looks :P Don't fret too much though because you will only be able to see it for a wee bit... Draw a "sawtooth" line from the 32-mm mark, with a pencil, and then drag the 1" wheel over it until it's gone. Basically a sawtooth line = squiggly lines... I forgot to take a picture... so just imagine ;)

Up next, is another fine stage to stab yourself at... marking 3mm around the edge of the butt...:

Take your Exacto knife and *score* (not cut all the way through) along each 3-mm mark -- most easily done with the cane on the dowel. Next, score two more lines, parallel to the first, between the edge of the cane and each 3-mm line. Finally, cut through the butt end for 1mm for all of your scores. Note: if the scores are not parallel/even in depth you will have a leaky reed again... #2 spot where most reeds hit the trash can... and after about two weeks worth of work. Yay.

This next photo shows you the scoring with my FAVOURITE part (seriously!): chipping out the burr! this is basically any extra shiny can that is past the 30-mm mark. I think I like this stage so much, because it is pretty much smooth sailing from here on in... If the reed's made it to this stage, it is very likely it will play something sometime other than one note! Picture of me chippin' out the burr:

Now comes fancy artwork time #2... basically you draw this using marks at 43 & 50-mm:

Next, following the design using a combination of expensive tool #x (I forget where we're at now), the reed knife, and sand paper, you make the reed fit within the following dimensions:

at the collar(where shiny meets ruff): 0.95-0.85mm thick

at 43 mm: 0.73 - 0.68mm thick

at 50 mm: 0.62-0.56mm thick

at 60mm: 0.45-0.40mm thick

This is my beautiful reed knife in action. Note how thick the top is so that I can put my thumb on the blade to guide it without getting indentations:

Finally, do a quick sand everywhere:

Measure twice! Groove-side up!!! (I only discovered this, this week... yay me!). This would be expensive tool #y... a micrometer... again not sure how much I paid for it, but definitely in the 100s of dollars... this one is made by Ben Bell and I'm very happy with it/ recommend it.

Now the fantabulous reward for the weeks of hard work: soak the cane for 10-12hours / until it sinks only to have a few more days of fun after this.

Until next time...