You will need a reed knife, chopping block, razor blade and a plaque for this part of the operation.
1) The first area that you should scrape is the tip. If you are just learning to make reeds, it might help you to draw a pencil line across the reed about 4 - 5 mms behind the tip to give yourself a point of reference.
When you work on the tip (for now) you just want to scrape the bark
off the reed evenly all the way across.
2) The next step is to start scraping the gouges. Start each gouge by making a small, narrow scrape in the middle of the blank where you want the gouge.
These gouges should go from 4-5 mm's behind the line for the tip to 4-5 mm's above the thread. As you continue to scrape the gouges, they will get wider.
Try to avoid letting the gouges meet in the middle of the reed since this will eliminate the spine
3 ) You can now move back to the tip and begin to shape the tip into a semicircle. Do not allow the middle of the tip to move farther back down than the original pencil line that gave the tip length reference.
4) You should now be ready to scrape most of the remaining bark off of the reed. Remember to scrape the bark off - don't cut it.
Don't worry about the bark below the bottom of the gouges, it can stay.
Most types of cane have a couple layers of bark to be gotten rid of. You should stop when the wood looks like it's about the same color as the wood where you have been working on the tip and gouges.
Do not take off more wood than is necessary at this point, because you can't put it back!
5) OK, You're finally ready to cut off the tip. Until you are an advanced reed maker, it's probably a good idea to cut the tip at 70 mm's because this will hopefully allow your reed to crow at a "C" pitch. (A good crow will sound TWO C's - an octave apart)
Place the tip of your reed on a chopping block and using a razor blade, cut the tip off the reed. Be certain that the blade is perpendicular to the ground and that you are cutting the tip squarely.
6) At this stage you should be able to blow into the reed (it will be hard!!) and get it to crow. If the reed crows too high or you just can't get any sound out of the reed at all - don't panic. Just put the plaque between the blades of the reed, go back and take a little more cane off the reed all the way around.
The areas you should probably concentrate on are the HEART, TIP and SPINE. Most
beginning reed makers tend to leave these areas too heavy initially.
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