Reader’s Question: Overlap clarification
Wednesday August 01 2007
Hey, I saw your entry yesterday talking about
Overlapping. What the heck do you mean by“The overlap HAS… TO make the “Click” sound. The louder
the “Click” the better.”
I tie with a bit of a right-hander’s overlap, but I
never try to adjust it when making a reed. I know the
Jay Light book suggests closing the opening by making
more of an overlap, then trimming the sides to hold
it. Honestly, I’d tried that long ago and always
ended up with leaky sides afterwards, so I don’t do
that anymore.Also, do you tie with the ears on or do you cut them
off before tying?
What I mean is when I set the overlap, there should be a natural “click” sound. If it isn’t there, it tells me the blades aren’t pushing together tightly, thus making the sides tight. This may lead to the overlap slipping further, as was first question asked. The louder the click sound, the better because it tells me how tight the sides are.
I’m not sure what the reader meant by adjust the overlap while making a reed. I tie the reed with an overlap, and set the overlap only after I have scraped down the tip and clipped. There is naturally a click sound to the setting of the overlap.
I never control the opening by making the overlap more and cutting off the sides. It affects the shape in a way I normally don’t like.
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Aug 1, 2007
The Jay Light book (Figure 37 pg 82 in my copy) shows triming the sides of the reed, “if the blades have been slipped to the point where the overlap on the sides is more than just barely visible”. I never ever do this either.
I still don’t get what you mean by “set” the overlap. I set my overlap when I tie, by folding the cane onto the staple with a slight overlap. Then (the abbreviated version), I scrape some, clip the tip, and scrape some more.
How do you “set” the overlap once you’ve already tied, and what makes the click sound? Is it grabing the two blades with one hand - with the tip facing you, left thumb on bottom, left first finger on top and a sliding motion?
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