Clarinet Reed Making--How to Make Clarinet Reeds from Tube Cane

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STEP BY STEP CLARINET REED MAKING
by RANDALL S. PAUL

Step 1

Soak a kilo of tube cane overnight in tap water.

Use a large container like a clean trash can, but be careful not to make it too large or use more than a couple of gallons of water.  You will need to empty out the old dirty water when you are finished. I suggest emptying the water outside or into a bathtub.  The water will be very green, this is a good thing, because you are removing most of the nutrients from the cane which make the reed taste bad and dampen the sound of the finished reed.

Split the tube cane into four equal parts.

Using a reed knife and a small rubber mallet, stand the tube on its end and place the reed knife on the end of the tube like you are splitting wood lengthwise.  Tap the knife with the rubber mallet and the knife will act like a wedge and split the tube in half.  Do the same thing with the two halves and you should have four equal long split pieces.

Cut the split tube lengths into reed-length sections

Inspect the split tube section and cut out the best 73mm long sections.  Try to find the section that has nice straight grain and a uniform look.

For this process you can use a band saw, jig saw, small hand saw, or commercially available guillotines specifically made for this purpose.  (I use one made by RDG/Laker).

This whole step will yield about 350 reed blank sections and take you about 2 hours.  After the cane dries completely, I recommend storing the sections in quart sized Ziploc brand freezer storage bags which should hold 100 sections each.  Label each bag with the type of cane and the year purchased.

Step 2

Making the flat side of the reed blank

Soak 50 or more reed blank sections in tap water overnight.  Using a planer or similar device, plane the flat side into the reed.  (I use a RDG planer or a DiLutis planer).  This process should only take a few minutes.  If you don’t have a planer you will have to sand the back of the reed flat.  I suggest using coarse sandpaper, like 220 grit, and doing this after the sections have dried out.  Sanding is a dry process, but planeing is a wet process.

Step 3

Giving the reed a taper or shaping the reed blank

Use a Dilutis shaper or similar tool; give the reed a basic shape by cutting the sides of the reed with a utility knife.  The reed shaper acts like a guide to give you the same shape each time.  This is a relatively quick process and you should be able to get through the 50 blanks in about an hour.  I suggest doing this over a trash can because there will be a lot of small sharp shavings discarded during this process.  Let the blanks dry completely.

Step 4

Making the finished blank

Working on a glass table top and securing the 320 wet/dry sandpaper in place using double sided tape, gently sand the rough reed blank smooth.  Make sure the flat side is perfectly smooth and flat, the edges are straight and perpendicular to the flat side and the tip and butt ends of the reed are all flawless.  I suggest sanding the flat side of the reed so that the tip end is thicker than the butt end.  This is called “tilt” and it is a way of making sure the tip end of the reed is made from softer cane than the rest of the reed.  If you have a reed that is thicker at the butt end than the tip, sand heavier on the butt end until you have the situation reversed.  Don’t go overboard doing this; it should be a very slight difference.

Each reed blank will take about 2 minutes to finish properly so this whole step will take you about 2 hours.  Be patient, at the end of this you will have 50 or so perfectly finished blanks.  Soak the finished blanks in a bowl of tap water for 15 minutes and let dry overnight.

Working on the glass table top and securing the 600 wet/dry sandpaper in place using double sided tape, gently sand the flat side of the blank smooth once again.  Soaking the blanks in tap water has raised the fibers of the cane and this is your last chance to finely finish the flat side of the blank before you move to the next step.  Each reed should only take you a few seconds so this final sanding will only take about 30 minutes.

Step 5

Final preparations of finished blank

If you purchased commercially available rough blanks instead of using tube cane; this is where you start.  If you made your blanks from tube cane, skip this step and proceed directly to Step 6. 

Using tap water, soak your blanks in a bowl overnight and let them dry for a day or so until they are completely dry.  Once dry, sand the flat side, and sides of the blank so that all surfaces are perfectly flat and smooth.  When sanding the sides of the blank, be sure to make the edges perpendicular to the flat side of the blank.  Refer to step 4 for sanding details except you should use only 600-grit sandpaper.  You should do this process twice to ensure that the blank will be resistant to warping.

Step 6

Removing bark from blank

Soak the blanks in tap water for at least one hour.  This step is much easier if the cane is wet.  Measure down from the tip of the reed blank 35mm and score the bark with a utility knife.  Position yourself over a trash can and scrape the bark with your knife blade.  You should use a whittling motion away from your body and the bark should come off in long thin strips.  Be very careful not to cut into the blank very deep, because this will ruin the blank.  The bark is actually very thin and you should only remove material that is about the thickness of a piece of paper.  Let the blanks dry with the flat side up.  This process is awkward at first, but actually will go very quickly.  Plan to spend about a half hour for this step.

Step 7

First cut with the Reedual
Making a semi-finished reed

Place your dry blank in the machine and gently sand material away using the BLUE setting.  This is the place the Reedual was set up to safely sand away about 85% of the material.
Take your time and expect to change the sandpaper as often as necessary to avoid burn marks.  This will take you a couple of hours to go through all the blanks.  Once they are all finished, soak them in tap water for 15 minutes and let dry overnight.

Step 8

Final preparations

Using 600-grit sandpaper and a glass table, sand the flat side of your semi-finished reed until the back is perfectly flat and smooth.  This is your last chance to remove any warpage or imperfections from the flat surface or sides.  Only proceed when you are convinced that the semi-finished reed is as perfect as possible.  This should only take about 30 minutes.

Step 9

Second cut with the Reedual

Put a new piece of sandpaper on the machine and load a dry blank. Gently sand the material from the new reed using the YELLOW setting.  This setting should leave the new reed too hard to play, but be very close to a finished product.  Since you are removing much less material than the first cut, this step will only take about 45 minutes.

Step 10
Final cut with the Reedual

Using the same piece of sandpaper, put a new reed into the machine and adjust the machine to the RED setting.  Gently and smoothly let the machine sand away this last bit of crucial material.  When you are finished the tip of the reed should measure between .005 and.006 on the Perfecta Reed Gauge.

Place the finished reed on your clarinet and test by blowing an open G on the DRY reed.  The result should be a free blowing, high amplitude, slightly raucous tone.  The first couple of reeds may take some minor adjusting to find the perfect machine setting, but after that, you should be able to make great reeds consistently.

Be careful not to make the reeds too hard, my experience is that they seem to play harder after the break in process, so keep the settings so that the reeds play freely when they come from the machine.  This step will take about an hour because of all the testing with the clarinet.

                        Cost of Making Reeds in Time and Money

How Much Money Does it Cost to Make Your Own Reeds from Tubes?

One kilo of tube cane will yield, on average, about 350 good blanks.
I got 368 rough blanks from one kilo of Muncy tube cane.  It takes just over two pounds of cane to equal one kilo.  At $70 a kilo, the Muncy cane costs about $.20 per rough blank. I split and cut 4 kilos of cane and now have over 1400 blanks, so these averages have been derived from 4 kilos of practical experience.

Expenses

Four kilo’s of cane costs $280 and yields approx. 1400 blanks
Reed Machine costs $600
Reed Shaper costs $100
Planer and accessories costs $150
Utility knife and blades costs $20
Sandpaper and supplies costs $20
Model reed costs $20

Average cost of all equipment including shipping and 4 kilo’s of cane,
with average yield of 1400 blanks is about $1200.  Average cost per reed with all equipment figured into the single reed cost is $.86 per reed.  The average cost of a commercial reed today with tax and shipping is well over $2.50 a reed.  So there is an immediate cost savings even when you figure in all the expenses up front.  This means that you will pay for all your supplies and begin saving money during your first $1200 investment.  With this knowledge you can see that if you buy Vandoren 56 reeds from a discount retailer, you will break even and start saving money at the equivalent of purchasing less than 45 boxes of commercial reeds ( $25.95 per box plus shipping and tax = approx. $27 a box).

45 boxes of commercial reeds will yield 450 reeds.  This means you have paid for all your equipment by the time you have made about 1.3 kilo’s worth of cane.  Another way to see it is:  a commercial reed costs 2.50/reed, handmade reeds cost .20/reed; therefore you save $2.30/reed.  After making 522 reeds you will have saved $1200.

How Much Time Does it Require to Make a Reed from Tubes?

Steps one and two require 1 hour per kilo of cane (minimum 350 blanks).
Steps three and four require 8 hours per kilo.
Step five takes two minutes per blank or 11 hours per kilo.
Step six takes ten seconds per blank or 1 hour per kilo.
Step seven takes 3 minutes per blank or 17.5 hours per kilo.
Step eight takes 20 seconds per blank or 2 hours per kilo.
Step nine takes 2 minutes per blank or 11 hours per kilo.
Step ten takes 2 minutes per blank or 11 hours per kilo.

Total time to make 350 reeds from tubes is 62.5 hours.
Average time spent per reed is less than 11 minutes.

How Long Does a Handmade Reed Last?

With proper care and preservation a handmade reed will last between one month and one year.  My average reed life is around seven months.  My average commercial reed life is one month.  So my handmade reeds are on average 7 times more durable, so I use 7 times fewer reeds in a year.  This also means my reeds are 7 times more consistent because I am not changing reeds so often.

Are Handmade Reeds of Better Quality than Commercial Reeds?

A typical box of commercial reeds will give me on average 2 really nice reeds, 6 average reeds, and 2 not very good reeds.  Out of 10 handmade reeds, I get on average 6 truly superior reeds (better than anything commercially available), 2 good reeds that play like good commercial reeds, and 2 reeds that are not very good.

Handmade reeds offer the user greater cane selection and aging, more customization in the dimensions or design and strength of the reed, and most importantly the ability to season the cane before the reed is made.