Cutting the Tip: Part II

As Olivia mentioned before, it is extremely important to measure your reed before you cut the tip!

Then make a mark where you wish to cut.

It's a good idea to have a completed reed to compare your work-in-progress reed to, so that you can see how they line up and where else you need to scrape.

If you don't soak your reed, when you try to cut the tip your cane will crack!  Trust me, I learned the hard way.

Carefully line up your razor blade along the pencil mark.  Be sure to cut in a straight line.  Only take off a little bit of the tip.

Like Olivia mentioned before, hold your reed at an angle and rock the razor blade back and forth firmly, until you've successfully cut off the tip.

As you can see, my cut was very straight, so I then went back and straightened out my line.

Ta-da!  You now have an open reed!

Once you've cut off the very top part of your reed, you're free to begin scraping on your reed again. 

-Julia

Cutting the Tip: Part I

Materials needed for today: Measuring ruler, blanks, pencil, knife, cutting block, and razor blade

The picture above is a diagram of the typical reed. A tied blank should be around 73.5 mm, and the finished reed should be 70-71 mm. After all the scraping on the tip, heart, and back is done, the tip can then be cut. 

It is important to make sure the reed is soaked before cutting the tip & scraping the reed. 

Julia measuring her blank before cutting. It is a good idea to lightly mark the measurements with a pencil before cutting!

The cutting block is shown above. When cutting the tip, you should hold the reed at a slight angle & rock the blade back and forth to ensure that it has cut all the way through. You can always cut more than once, making sure to cut only a very small amount of the reed.

-Olivia