Make an Uilleann Pipe Chanter Reed

Also contains information on natural and artificial drone and regulator reeds.

Latest update 25 June 1997

Copyright 1996 David C. Daye, all text, image and sound files presented here.

Feel free to copy this work for desktop use and/or your individual study of piping. You may not republish all or any portions of this work in any form, or distribute it in any form, without permission. You may establish electronic pointers or links to this page. Questions, problems, comments or requests for permission to reprint may be e-mailed to me at CLICK HERE

Contents

1. Overview and Disclaimer
2. Seth Gallagher's Reed Making Page (Lots of description of things you'll see here.)
3. Vocabulary
4. Tools: Buying and Making
5. Staples: Rolled and Tubing
6. Cane
7. Slip
8. Gouging
9. Sanding
10. Forming Blades
11. Assembly
12. Initial Scraping
13. Initial Testing
14. Intermediate Scraping
15. Finishing
16. Troubleshooting
17. Artificial Drone Reeds
18. Aritficial Regulator Reeds

Overview -- Revised 06 December 96

This work will demonstrate tools, procedures, techniques and tests used in many of the popular reedmaking methods or "recipes" as I prefer to call them. There will not be a detailed recipe of my own or someone else's since there are many published in popular books such as David Quinn's The Piper's Despair, Pat Sky's A Manual for the Irish Uileann Pipes, Tim Britton's My Method, Wilbert Garvin's The Irish Uilleann Pipes, and Dave Hegarty's Reedmaking Made Easy book, not to mention regular articles in the Pipers' Review and An Piobaire.

What follow here will be photos, diagrams and some diagnostic sound samples of many of the aspects of reed making and adjusting which are not illustrated in some existing printed tutors or are not well shown in the few existing video tutors. No special claim of originality is made for this material. Most of it is routinely taught by piping instructors individually and at uilleann pipe gatherings and in the sources mentioned above. I present it here simply as a service to the piping community, especially isolated learners who may have difficulty interpreting texts or oral descriptions. Perhaps authors and editors of future works will find some useful ideas here for their own presentations.

I am willing to consider sharing this material or its original sources with authors revising or publishing new reedmaking works but please note this material is copyright so it may not be used without my express permission.

These illustrations should be used only as a guide for using a complete existing recipe which the maker of your particular chanter knows to be appropriate for it. Many experts have spent painful years learning the truth that measurements and techniques cannot be freely interchanged between different recipes, even though radically different approaches can produce excellent reeds in the end. I am most sorry that I cannot offer suggestions for designing reeds to suit chanters, that is a topic far beyond my technical expertise.

It is actually not very difficult to make a reed, even a good reed. A complete novice can produce a decent reed in 2 or 3 hours' work spread over several days, provided s/he has complete instructions, good raw materials, and of course a chanter which is well behaved and tolerant of modest variations that will occur naturlly when following any chosen reed recipe.

This last statement is more important than it appears. As some very famous and very frustrated pipers have observed, there seem to be many chanters in circulation which simply cannot be reeded to play both musically and comfortably. There is no easy way for a learner to know the quality of a chanter so it is always best to arrange to spend a comfortable period of time having an established player or maker examine the chanter in order to know if the instrument is worthy of purchasing or, if already owned, is worthy of further efforts.

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Vocabulary

• Back -- The lower part of the blades of the reed, left covered by bark, below the scraped area.
• Bed -- The 2 relatively flat surfaces on the upper half of the staple onto which the blades are bound.
• Binding -- The wrapping used to tie together the pieces of the reed.
• Blades -- The 2 curved sheets of cane which vibrate to create the sound of the reed.
• Bore -- The airspace inside any musical pipe or staple.
• Bridle -- Also called a "collar" (see below).
• Cane -- A type of hollow grass plant, latin name of Arundo Donax, used for bagpipe and other woodwind reeds. It is commonly purchased from growers in southern France (orchestral woodwinds) and Spain (mostly pipers) but can be grown in many climates such as southern England, most of the USA and Australia.
• Chamber -- The airspace between the blades in the lower region just above the staple.
• Collar -- Any type of adjustable, sometimes movable wrapping applied to the blades not for assembly but for controlling the behavior of the reed. Often, a narrow band of thin copper or brass, or several turns of metal wire.
• Corners -- The upper outside parts of the lips of the blades.
• Elevation -- The amount of opening between the lips of double reeds or between the tongue and body of a single reed.
• Eye -- The oval-shaped opening at the top of the staple.
• Gouge -- A type of curved chisel often used for rough preparation of the inside surface of the blades.
• Heart -- The center area of the scraped outside surface of the blades.
• Lips -- The top opening of the reed, where most of the vibration activity occurs.
• Mandrel -- A long, thin and usually rounded piece of metal used for forming and shaping the staple. Usually at least 2 are required, a "rolling mandrel" for initial forming of (some) staples, and an "eye" mandrel for creating the fiinal shape at the top of the staple.
• Throat -- The bottom of the staple.
• Sanding Cylinder -- any smooth round cylindrical object used for fashioning the finished interior surface of the blades.
• Scrape -- Verb, the act of removing bark and cane from the outside of the reed, either by literally scraping with some sort of tool or also by shaving or sanding. Noun, the area of the outside of the reed from which bark has been removed.
• Shooting Block -- a piece of wood or other material with a shallow trough into which a length of cane is placed for gouging.
• Slip -- A strip of cane split from a natural tube and partially finished into blades.
• Staple -- The piece of metal tubing onto which the blades of the reed are bound, and which becomes effectively the uppermost part of the bore of the chanter.
• Tails -- The bottomost parts of the blades, often slender and pointed, which rest on the staple and are wrapped under the binding.
• Throat -- usually, the narrowest part of the bore inside a chanter or regulator. Sometimes, the bottom end of a chanter or regulator reed staple which lies next to the chanter throat.
• V - The bottom region of the scrape on a double-reed, even if it is not V-shaped but a more rounded U-shape.
• Waist -- The bottom of the exposed part of the blades and the top of the binding.

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Tools and Supplies

A modest collection of tools and supplies is required for making reeds.

Generic or Widely-Available Tools

• Sharp knife and/or single-edged razor blade for cutting shapes in cane.
• Sandpaper - medium, fine and extra fine grades.
• Hammer - small fine hammer, with fairly straight claws, if you need to make staples.
• Pliers - small needle-nose and also small cutters for various tasks with staples and bridles..
• Pliers - small flat-bladed needle-nose pliers for forming the ends of staples (either rolled or tubing types).
• Saw - a fine model-making saw or hacksaw for cutting cane and possibly tubing to length.
• Tube Cutter - small model-making tubing cutter, if you make staples or reed tuning-slides from straight tubing.
• Tapered Hand Reamer - small hand tool for cutting metal away from the inside opening of tubing.
• Files - 2 small metal files, if you are making hand-rolled staples, or 1 for general use otherwise.
• Gouge - 1 or 2 wood gouges (curved chisels) for rough-carving the initial interior curved surface of the blades.

Tools That Must be Made or Changed

• Shooting Block - a device for holding strips of cane as they are gouged to make blades. It consists of a piece of wood with a shallow trough to hold the curved strip of cane, with a stop at one end against which the cane rests when being gouged. This one is carved into a common kitchen cutting board and also includes other features.
• Cane Sizer - hole(s) of various known diameters used for measuring the outer diameter of tubes or strips of cane.
• Staple Forming Block - piece of wood with a narrow groove(s), into which the sheet metal blank for the staple and the forming mandrel are tapped in order to begin forming the staple.
• Sanding Cylinder - any cylinders at least 4" long with straight, smooth outer surfaces ranging from 1-1/2" to 3" or 3-1/2" outer diameter, for fine finishing of the interior surfaces of the blades. Sandpaper is wrapped and held onto the outside, and the gouged cane slip is rubbed back and for in order to finish the inside surface. Probably only 2-3 will be needed with diameters clustered near that which is appropriate for your particular recipe.
• Rolling Mandrel - if making rolled staples, a short thin tapered metal rod around which the sheet metal for a rolled-type staple is hammered and then shaped, shown here being made in a hand-drill by filing while being spun against the leg.
• Eye Mandrel - if making any type of staple, a short thin metal rod with a somewhat smaller diameter and a carefully tapered end, for use in creating the top end of either tube-type or rolled-type staples.
• "Wax Lamp" - unnecessary but a convenience. Desk lamp with bees' wax lump on outside of metal shade, to keep it soft for working with reeds.

Generic Supplies

• Plumber's teflon tape
• Heavy thread or light string
• Light elastic or rubber bands, and/or O-rings
• Metal tubing
• Sheet metal
• Soldering torch

Special Reedmaking Supplies

• Cane
• Bees' wax
• Black wax

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Staples

Steps in making traditional conical staple

Note: Certain illustrations below will be re-scanned for greater clarity in early December.

1. Obtain thin sheet metal brass (typically .015") or copper (.020" to .025") from hobby store, roofing contractor etc.
2. Cut into modest size pieces 2-1/4" or wider (equals length of staple) and several inches long (to obtain several staples side-by-side). Larger pieces of metal may be difficult to raise to high enough temperature for annealing.
3. Anneal (make metal soft enough to bend easily) by heating to red glow using small plumber's torch or other suitable flame. It is not necessary to plunge red-hot brass or copper into water to preserve the softness (as is necessary with steel) but of course it makes the metal easy to handle immediately.
4. Cut into individual staple shapes according to recipe. Leave slightly oversize. Many rolled conical designs used tapered blanks, which can be laid out in alternating directions on the sheet metal as shown in this photo.
5. File into exact final shape. Notice metal appearnce (copper, but brass would look similar at this time). It is black from the annealing process. Finally, lightly file all the edges to remove burrs and roughness especially from the surface which will become the critical inside of the staple.
6. Prepare for bending. Lay the metal blank over the forming-groove, then lay the forming-mandrel over the metal blank. Be sure everything is carefully centered.
7. Tap mandrel and blank into the forming-groove. The claws of an ordinary claw-hammer are convenient for tapping the slender mandrel into the narrow groove.
8. Tap edges of blank fully around the mandrel. First remove from groove, then tap edges with modest force using hammer. Some makers use a wooden block for smoother initial roll. Next view shows edges sufficiently close at right, still partly open at left.
9. Finish forming by rolling the staple, with mandrel inside for support, firmly between 2 metal files. The files will impart a bit of roughness to the outside of the staple, seen at right in clean area of copper. Section at left has not yet been rolled and remains blackened from the annealing process. Notice the seam between the edges. It virtually disappears after a few seconds' rolling between the files. This seam is nearly airtight at right.
10. Notice shape of ends of staple, perfectly round, and seam is no longer visible. The process of rolling between the 2 files makes this very easy to accomplish.
11. If desired, seam can be soldered together to be perfectly airtight, and to make it easier to form the eye.
12. Taper the bottom by filing, to allow staple to fit farther into chanter. Clean area at right end has been tapered.
13. Insert eye-forming mandrel which is a steel rod whose end is tapered to match the taper of the top end of the staple. Most modern tapered staples will leave the larger end round, and have the eye formed at the narrower end. View shows the taper visible from the side, and the oval-shaped end which is the correct thickness for the finished eye. The oval must necessarily be much narrower than the width of the eye since otherwise it would be impossible to insert and remove the mandrel.
14. Tap (and/or squeeze with pliers) the eye end of the staple onto the forming mandrel to begin forming the taper and the eye.
15. Notice shape of partly finished eye. It is generally oval in shape but uneven, often too open at the sides. Often the the seam re-opens under the stress of forming.
16. Finish shaping the taper and the eye by tapping and/or squeezing. If the seam is open, tap with a glancing blow in order to push the edges of the seam close together again. Be sure to tap or squeeze towards the edges of the eye to form the eye into a narrower, evenly shaped oval.
17. Notice the shape of the finished eye.
18. Tube-type Staple Eye: Staples made of thin brass tubing are easier to bend. The eye can be finished by inserting the eye-forming mandrel and then gently squeezing the outside of the eye with flat-nosed pliers as shown in this photo.
19. Finish the staple by filing the tapered surface smooth of any small bumps. Large bumps must be first tapped away since they will also be present inside the staple, making the tuning and tone difficult to predict. File a small taper on the bottom of the staple, especially if the sheet metal was .020" or thicker, so that the reed will be able to be inserted fully into the chanter if necessary. This can make an important difference of 1/4" to 1/2" of insertion for tuning purposes, depending on the chanter.

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Cane

• Dunk Test for grading cane hardness before starting. This is not a traditional uilleann pipe step but a recent innovation of concert oboe and bassoon players. In my opinion "soft cane" will sink 48%-53% of its length in water; "medium" cane 54%-59% and "hard" cane 60% and more. I suspect that cane sinking more than 70% of its length is too hard. For more details see the "dunk test" document.
• Split a tube of cane into strips and cut a sufficient length of fairly straight, not-twisted strip of appropriate width for your recipe. Many concert D pitch chanters start with strips 4" to 4-1/2" long and a little over 1/2" wide.

Slip

• Select a Strip or tube of cane of appropriate outside diameter for your recipe. Photo shows test holes drilled into a board into which either tubes or strips of cane can be inserted to quickly measure the diameter. Many tubes are not exactly round, so each strip may have a different diameter. Different recipes can use rather different diameters for reeds for the same type of chanter so there is no one commonly-used size.
• Plane the strip to the exact width required for the start of the process of making blades. The photo shows a small hobby style plane but a special tool is not required. Ordinary coarse or medium sandpaper can be used to finish the edges.

Gouging

• Goals: different recipes have different requirements. The photo shows 2 pairs of blades gouged and sanded differently on the inside but not yet scraped on the outside. The pair at left is thicker, for recipes which emphasise a small elevation or opening between the lips when the inside curvature is finished. The pair at right is thinner with a much larger opening, for recipes which emphasize the thickness of the slip and do not worry so much about the size of the opening at this stage. Niether method is "correct," each can be used in an appropriate recipe provided other steps are taken to accommodate.
• Gouge the strip. First place it into the trough in the shooting board and then use the gouge to start the process of creating the inside curve of the slip. It is not necessary to be perfect at this stage since the final shape will be created by sanding. Leave the edges and the centerline a bit thick at first. The next view shows slip after first gouge pass, edges & center still a bit thick.
• Gouge the edges. Use the gouge to get the edges very thin (for most recipes, not knife-sharp at this time). Gouge the centerline but be careful not to go too deep at this stage, especially in the center 1/3 of the slip which is where the critical top ends of the blades will be. Leave some cane for the sandpaper to remove. The next view shows a section of slip, thin part ok, thicker part still needs gouging.

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Sanding

• Sand the gouge. Wrap coarse or medium (#80 to #150 grit) sandpaper around a smooth cylinder of an outer diameter appropriate to your recipe. Hold or clamp the cylinder so that it does not wobble, and hold the slip under a finger taking care to keep it closely alligned with the cylinder as you move it back and forth. You may be able to see in the photograph traces of bees' wax on the bark of the slip, which can help provide traction to the fingers. Notice the cylinder is resting firmly against the white edge of a table. Different recipes vary considerably so there is no standard diameter for all. Decorative candles, plastic plumbing, wooden kitchen rolling pins, food or beer cans, many other round cylinders can serve if they are smooth, free of raised edges, and the correct size.
• Start with coarse or medium sandpaper. Finish with very fine paper (#320 grit or finer). The center 1/3 of the length of the slip must be very smooth and free of nicks, grooves and gouges. The photo shows a rougher surface at left which has had only medium sandpaper, which is acceptable for the bottom (tails) of the slip, while the piece at right has been smoothed with very fine paper and is suitable for the active top or lips of the reed.
• Optionally the inside of the slip can be stabilized with any of several steps.
• Raise the grain. Lightly moisten the sanded center area of the slip, let dry 20 minutes or so. The next view shows grain raised at left from moistening, still smooth at right where no moisture was applied. Then re-sand with very fine sandpaper (#400 grit to #600 grit). Future exposure to high humidity will not raise the grain and increase surface roughness after this treatment, whereas untreated reeds tend to become rougher on the inside over time. The final view with strong overhead light shadows shows no grain casting shadows but a dust grain on cane near center left shows clearly.
• Seal the surface. Rub interior surface on a candle or otherwise rub some form of wax onto finished inner surface. This tends to make reed somewhat slower to react to changes in the air. Other treatments include shellac, superglue, fingernail polish, etc. Note: hard substances such as nail polish or super-glue will make the blades stiffer and change the behavior and/or the sound of the reed. Be careful not to scratch or dent the surface!
• Finish the edges. Check your recipe! At this time, if the edges are required to be sanded to a knife-edge sharpness, the slip has uisually been left slightly too wide. Place a sheet of fine or very fine sandpaper on a flat surface and sand each edge for several strokes, alternating between sides, until the slip is the correct final width (especially in the center 1/3 of its length) and the two edges are the same thickness in the center region.

Forming Blades

• Laying out parallel-sided head and tails
• Laying out a combination parallel-sided / tapered-sided head and tails
• Gouging "room" for staple inside tails
• Gouging tuning/tone chamber inside head above eye-level

Assembly

• Fitting tails onto staple (side view): The staple should be inserted into the reed, at an amount such that the tails are firmly in contact with the staple, especially the ends of the tail. In this photo the staple has been inserted too far. When these tails are bound onto the staple, extra stresses will be placed on the blades. This staple should be pulled out until the elevated ends of the tails lie down against the staple. If the recipe calls for gouging the insides of the tails to "make room" for the staple, this step may have accidentally been omitted, or may not have been sufficient.
• Blades collapsing too much. If the elevation (amount of opening at the lips) decreases too much after the staple is inserted, the finished blades may collapse completely or fail to sound properly. I prefer this kind of assembly, with the blades completely unscraped after assembly, to remain open about 2-3 times the elevation eventually desired for playing. The diagram shows how the blades can be wedged open at one or both ends and then allowed to sit for a few days for the cane to "set" into its new shape. Often (but not always) this will allow the reed to be finished with the desired amount of elevation.

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Initial Scraping

• Demonstration of goal: photo showing side-by-side a professionally made chanter reed and a regulator reed in strong side-light, to show the differences in scraping. Notice the very flat appearance of the regulator reed scrape. Above it is the chanter reed. Notice that the edges of the scrape are not well defined in the slide-light. This is because, in cross-section, a chanter reed needs to be arched and a bit thicker along the centerline than a regulator reed, in order to jump the octave. The regulator of course is supposed to stay in the first octave, so its centerline is intentionally scraped thinner to prevent jumping the octave. Reeds made by the English pipemaker Dave Williams.
• Cut away rough scrape. Check your recipe! This is one way to start the scraping process by removing material that I believe is removed from reeds made by most methods. In other words this step is minimal enough that it shouldn't interfere with most of the popular scraping styles.
• Fit a bridle or collar. First view shows a copper "collar" style, wrapped snugly around base of blades just above wrapping (top view looking down towards the white wrapping barely visible top of photo). Click here to see a brass sliding-type bridle, which usually rides above the binding some distance. It is shaped so as to squeeze the edges together, opening the lips, more as it is moved up, and at the same time squeezes the bark sides of the faces together, closing the lips, more as it is moved down. The loop in the middle makes this type of bridle very easy to reshape for repositioning. Click here for a sketch of bridle design ideas.

General Topics:

• For pre-blade-cutting methods
• For blades cut & assembled before scraping

Initial Testing

• Sounds: Inhale-type crow
• Sounds: playing in chanter

Dull tone in chanter reeds can appear any time, even the earliest stages. It is best either to attempt a remedy or discard the reed and avoid fruitless finishing. Dull tone is often or usually caused by deformed edges which are most easily seen when the blades are taken apart and the inside curve viewed under strong side light. The diagram shows basic principles.

Intermediate Scraping

• Methodical scraping with blade
• Methodical sanding techniques
• Hard-collar scrape method
• Bassoon Light Pattern
• Sky / Hegarty Light Pattern
• Sounds: crow
• Sounds: chanter

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Finishing

Troubleshooting

• Gurgling D
• Sharp bottom D
• Flat back D
• Sharp back D
• Sinking back D
• Breaking back D
• Gurgling /growling 2nd octave E
• Octave Sharp
• Octave Flat

Artificial Drone Reeds

• 2 types of bodies for artificial drone reeds, one thick white plastic, the other thin metal tubing which has been made easier to use by adding a 2nd layer of tubing on the outside of the first.
• Sanding the tongue bed onto a body. A long diagonal is first filed onto the tubing, then it is fine-sanded to be perfectly flat by holding very fine sandpaper and sanding on a flat piece of glass or mirror.
• Thin style tongue for artificial drone reed, 1/32" hobby store styrene plastic. More detailed drawing. Similar (but somewhat different body) to a commercial GHB reed. Such a tongue must be much shorter than conventional cane or wooden tongues for artificial drone reeds, and have a greater elevation than many long-tongued drone reeds.
• Long style wood/cane tongue for artificial drone reed. Tongue is first finished mirror flat, then a slight curve is sanded into fixed end to create permanent elevation. Expanded view diagram of tongue only.

Artificial Regulator Reeds.

• "Scraping" the blades of an artificial double-reed for regulator or smallpipe chanter. The blades were cut from 1-quart plastic containers (USA recycle code #5 or #6) for yogurt. The process is very simple, the upper 1/3 of the blade length is sanded such that the lips are thinned to be 1/2 their original thickness.
• Finished artificial double-reed is shown with soft elastic band to reduce loudness and make its tone more mellow.

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