The First Day...Part 1

It was dark and stormy morning...

Well... not really... it was quite cold, but rather nice.

We ventured down to B16 to meet Mary and Danny and to begin our journey.  Upon entering into the room we were greeted with the sight of a table with chairs around it and shelves chock-full of odd looking tools and strange contraptions, which we would later find to be associated with reed making.  

We were welcomed with open arms and warm hello.  After the brief salutations we settled ourselves on opposite ends of the table and got straight to work.  

     First, Mary introduced us to the different types of cane that can be used to make bassoon reeds.  Her favorite brands include Rigotti and Rieger.  She recommends GPS Cane (Gouged, Profiled, and Shaped [NOT Global Positioning Satellite]) for beginning students and for our personal use should we ever need to make a reed.  This is because it saves you the hassle of having to find and purchase the equipment necessary for this process and the time that is necessary for this process.

That being said, she jumped right into showing us how to begin this process with gouged cane.  The first step was to sand the inside of the cane with 20 gril sandpaper, which, according to my notes, is apparently unbuyable.  Or apparently it is just at Home Depot... Who knew?

    Next we took the density of the cane with a very fancy looking machine called the density gauge.  We placed the end of the cane inside the machine, set the dial to 0 and then "PULL THE LEVER KRONK!" "WRONG LEVERRRRRR!  Why do we even HAVE that lever?"..... but really there is only one lever and it does what it is supposed to do so you will be fine.  

We waited for the dial to settle then wrote the number down.  The higher the number the softer the cane is, while naturally the lower the harder.  rinse and repeat with the other side. 

Here pictured, Kathy ponders the sanity of the bloggers while Mary explains the next step: Boil the Cane.  Here is the process:

1) Boil the water in a thing in which you boil water.  (Preferably holy water, but if you can't get any of that, just use tap water).

2) Pour the boiling water into a mason jar.

3) Drop the cane in and seal the jar.

4) Leave them there for at least 5 minutes.

5) Empty the water out and put the cane back into the jar (try to make sure each piece isn't laying right on top of the other pieces because they tend to stick together and it is a hassle and this is a run-on sentence...)

6) Re-seal the jar and leave for at least 1 hour (we accidentally left it for multiple days--but potato potato)

Next we moved on to oboes...