Brian Howard Ready-Tie Reed Cane for Uilleann Pipes

I got my reed cane from Brian Howard this weekend and am quite excited to get started on a reed. I'm going to use my own staples and see how that goes. The cane was very promptly shipped and arrived in great condition.

I took pictures and measured the cane and am presenting those here. To keep download times small, the large images are only 640x480 but I think that's enough to see what they're like. I post these because I wasn't too impressed with the photos on Brian Howard's site. They were hard to see and a bit out of focus. Hopefully, these will help those thinking of buying some.

To the left is a picture of one of the slips with a few measurements. I didn't feel the need to measure every last dimension because I don't plan to make any like this, I have my own method. I just wanted to give a rough idea of the sizes.

This is a picture of the staple I'll be using. I made this from 20 gauge copper sheet and formed it with a mandrel (real men use mandrels).

Here is a closeup of the staple eye (left). It measures 0.075" x 0.200". The shape of the eye seems to affect the G and F# notes the most. The length of the flattened part also affects these notes.

Closeup of the scrape (right). Looks to me like there's a lot more going on here that I can see. My scrapes never look like this. I like the fact that there is a score mark right where you need it. Click on the image to get a larger view.

This is a photo of both the reed slip and the staple, just to give an idea of scale (left).

The cane also came with a good set of instructions. Brian recommends dipping the tails in water up to the shoulder before binding to make the cane more flexible. This, he says, prevents cracking and will give the cane a new "memory" when it dries, much like cane used in basket weaving. This should also allow the reed to play better in varying climates (something I could desperately use) due to increased stability.

All-in-all, I think this is a great product, although I say that without having sounded one yet. I can tell, though, that this is a quality product and this promises to save me hours and hours of time voicing the reed.

I'll be putting together my first reed with these slips later this week. I'm having a stupid delay: I don't have any cobbler's wax for the binding so I'm trying to scare some up. That's the only reason I didn't try to bind one tonight.

Remember, if a dyslexic spider monkey like me can do it, so can you!