My method of making bassoon reeds is as follows.
I buy gouged cane from Albert Glotin - I find that the work for gouging tube is too time consuming.
As can be seen in the photograph, I prefer to use a straight shape and having shaped the cane, and marked the middle and wire positions, have until recently, been using a wooden easel to profile the chosen piece of 'arundo donax'.
Now, from time to time I have had to remove the cane from the easel, hold it up to the working light to look for imperfections in the scrape -- then back to the wooden easel. This, in itself, is time consuming -- thus, I have devised a new easel.
This is a tube of glass, one inch in diameter, with two clips to hold the shaped cane firmly, and as one scrapes one has only to hold the glass tube up to the light source to correct any imperfections in the scrape. Dark patches show up and one can easily correct matters with a pass of the knife.
Now, to the materials used:
The glass tube was obtained from a friend, who works for a Corporation making high pressure steam gauges -- the glass is thick and of high quality.
The clips I used were converted from what are known in the U.K. as Jubilee Clips-- used originally for fastening water hoses on automobiles--what they are called in the U.S. I do not know! But any metal strip with a slight quality of 'spring' can be used. The screws with wing nuts can be bought at any good hardware store.
Just to finish off my new easel, I covered the ends of the glass tube with leather, using a good adhesive and filled in the ends of the glass tube with corks from wine bottles -- any real bassoon player should have some of these around!
I made up the whole thing in about an hour -- I am a bit of a do-it-yourself man -- any bassoon player the world over has to be. But this easel really helps to turn out a better reed.
I hope the photographs make the details of construction of the glass easel clear. Care must be taken with shaping the clips used to hold the shaped cane, thus, when the wing nuts are unscrewed a few turns, there will be enough space under the clips to insert the cane. Herewith a diagram of how the clips should look:
Happy scraping to all fellow bassoon reed makers and to fellow readers of The World's Bassoonists.
My reeds retail in the UK at L2 sterling-- plus postage and packing!!!! Anyone want to try one?