Some Notes from The Way of Cane Bassoon Reed Machine Service

Since retiring from the Houston Symphony in 2019, I have been servicing many different makes of reed making machines in various states of repair or disrepair ranging from severely damaged to the light wear of normal usage.

It probably goes without saying, but nonetheless can't hurt repeating: most of the problem I encounter with all of these machines is that the cutting blades are no longer sharp. That and the carriages will barely move.

Some of the blades are worn to the point of completely changing the shape of the blade's cutting edge from straight to concave in the case of profilers with straight blades, or gougers or tip machines with a curved blade (Reeds 'n Stuff, Kunibert, Rimpl.etc.) just being dull or the blade is chipped. This wear happens gradually and most of us don't notice it until it becomes difficult to profile the cane any longer. At this point (once we even become aware of the problem) we can:

1) Sharpen the blade ourselves— if we know how

2) Purchase a new blade - if these are still available depending on the age of the machine

3) Mount the blade back into the carriage of the machine.

Setting the new blade is often a point of confusion for many of us and it's easy to understand why. Unless we have some guidance it can be a really frustrating journey. Adjustment upon adjustment with less than ideal results. If there are instructions that is all well and good. If not we often have to work backwards from where the machine is initially set up. It's always a good idea to take note of these things before disassembling our machines.

For example, with the old Freddy Pfeifer machines, a short instruction sheet came with it to help with the sharpening of the blades and also how to set the blade correctly back into the carriage. Pfeifer included with his machines a "limit bar" which was a simple piece of metal with 4 shims, 2 brass and 2 steel shims, one of each was placed between the limit bar and the carriage to allow the blade to be set so that it projected .015" (.38 mm) past the carriage and the cane hold-down just ahead of the blade.

This dimension (the blade projection) sets up the entire geometry of the profiling type of machine no matter what type of machine but depends on the design of the maker. So Pfeifer set up his machine to take out a rather heavy strip of cane at around .015" (.38 mm). The Reeds 'n Stuff and Rieger machines take a strip of cane with each pass of the carriage of around .004—.005" (.101 mm) at each pass. I call this the ribbon or chip thickness, but I just mean the thickness of the strip of cane the machine makes at each pass of the carriage.

So what's the difference and why is there a difference? The best answer I have come up with is that it's just the designer's point of departure— but and this is a big but— the most important consideration is that at the tip portion of the profile the carriage should be level so that the thinnest part of the profile is the same at the corners of the tip which is the thinnest part of the profile. If the carriage is not level and parallel then one side of the profile will be thicker or thinner than the other. If the carriage is lower than parallel at the tip, the near side will be thinner, if higher than parallel, then the near side will be thicker.

I have found that the same is true for gouging machines as well. The blades must be sharp but also set so the carriage is parallel based on the blade projection from the carriage. But there is no tapering of the gouge (ideally) like the profilers, so this is less critical, though I have found if the carriage isn't parallel one side of the gouge is different from the other. Reversing the cane in the gouging bed will balance that out. I find that a ribbon thickness of around .004—.005" (.101 mm) works well.

I have thought to reset the Pfeifer to a thinner ribbon thickness, more like the German machines, but find that it throws the geometry of the machine off and indeed the corners of the tip profile result in significant differences. So for the Pfeifer machines I stay with using the projection of the blade that Pfeifer designed into the machine which as I said earlier is .015". The only problem with this is that with a sharpened blade, taking that thick of a cut from the cane often buries the blade on the initial few pieces of cane. It tends to resolve itself once the blade gets a little wear.

Both Rieger and Reeds 'n Stuff have instructions for setting up and maintaining their machines.

On the Reeds 'n Stuff machine, Udo Heng has devised a dial indicator jig for setting the blade projection exactly for his profiler and also his tip profiler at .04-.05 mm (.0019").

Here is a link for instructions on how to replace the blade and use this tool to properly adjust it:

https://www.reedsnstuff.com/en/Bassoon/Measuring-Testing/Blade-Adjustment-Indicator-oxid.html

Before finding out about this, I would set the machines by the thickness of the ribbon of cane of the pass of the carriage to about .004"(.101 mm). This ribbon or chip thickness (the slice of cane the machines cut) works out well for both the Rieger and Reeds 'n Stuff machines in my experience.

Until this critical aspect of the machine is brought back to specification, (and by that I mean the sharpness and integrity of the cutting blades and the proper setting of it in the carriage), any type of compensation for the worn or incorrectly set blades just invites frustration. This is the fundamental starting point of setting up any of these types of machines.

One other point I want to mention about the difficulty of profiling or gouging cane that I have observed in the servicing of around 40 machines in the last year is that often the main shafts of the machines are caked with dried oil residue and cane dust. Many of the machines I see for servicing, the carriages move only with great difficulty— and this is independent of using it to profile or gouge, meaning with the carriage just moved on the shaft and not in contact with the cane. So a dull blade and dirty shaft and main bearing are the majority of the problems I see with most machines. Those with ball bearings show this tendency less, but it is still good to clean and oil moving parts now and then.