The wheels on the oboe reed machine are moving…
Friday September 28 2007
Well, reeds are in full swing of things. I’ve recruited some help to help me split/sort/pregouge pieces of cane. What a big help! I don’t let ANYONE… touch my gouging machines because they’re so finicky, and plus you can tell a lot about a piece by how it gouges up, so I prefer to do that step myself. I’m also very picky about shaping and believe you can tell a lot about a piece of cane and it’s gouge by how it folds over my finger, so I prefer to do that step by myself to make sure each piece is shaped absolutely correct. I also find that many players aren’t careful while shaping, and don’t get a perfectly shaped piece, or they hack into the shape too much, taking off sides and leaving a leaky piece of cane (which nobody can do anything with).
Pretty soon, I’ll also recruit someone to help me with tying blanks. The problem is I haven’t met someone who can tie as consistent and quickly as me, so I get impatient waiting for them (it usually takes me 2.5 minutes to tie, so about 25 reeds an hour).
So in my reed case now I have 17 blanks just waiting for my scraping. Today I had the day off (no class, except for orchestra which was rehearsing the Schumann Cello concerto which I’m not playing) so I sat and made 10 reeds in about 4 hours. Very productive. Unfortunately, I’m still behind on my orders by about 17 reeds. I’m hoping to get all 27 reeds in the mail by Monday.
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