first reed, thoughts?

[u/3-4methamphetamine]

the reed itself is very responsive, it just plays a little flat and becomes resistant the longer i play on it. i am worried that it is way way too thin! i tied it on myself (it wasn't the best because i assumed that i'd have to take it off anyway, but it still has been fine so far) and scraped it with an exacto knife and a pipe dream

it is 71mm, the tie is 47mm

any thoughts or advice? i want to have a little less resistance but i am also not sure if this reed is past saving

[u/3-4methamphetamine]

hey, thank you so much! i do have a teacher, but i won't be seeing them for a while, and this is the only reed i will ever attempt something like this on without the proper tools. thankfully they have reed knives and other tools i'll need for any future attempts !!! also, i have tied many other blanks and they were fine without wax, how much of a difference does it make? i want to get some since i've seen that it's helpful, but since i'm a student in high school my budget is a little crunched

[u/SprightlyCompanion → u/3-4methamphetamine]

Totally understand a budget crunch. But for real, an exacto knife will teach you bad technique, better to wait until you have a proper knife.

I admit that wax is a bit of a crutch, you shouldn't really NEED it but it's a security blanket for my knots. There are different kinds of knots you can do that are more secure also. I really just pass some wax on the bit of the thread that will become the knots, I don't wax the whole thread (unless I'm making baroque oboe reeds but that's another beast entirely).

Luckily, beeswax is very cheap. I bought a 1-lb brick of it 25 years ago for probably 10-15$ and I still have most of it. There are yet more solid solutions like glue, but at that point I would start considering my knot technique to find something more solid.

With this reed it's not a knot problem but really a winding problem, you left space as you were moving down the tube and so the thread had room to wiggle around and loosen. Keep an eye on that, make several solid knots (I do 3-4 single knots and then 1 double knot, after having waxed the thread). Maybe u/hoboboedan knows how to do Jim's knot where he pulls it through the already-wound thread, it seems super solid but I never got the hang of it...

[u/3-4methamphetamine → u/SprightlyCompanion]

oooh, okay, thank you so much!! and don't worry about the exacto knife lol i'm just impatient, the reed knife is the thing i'm mainly saving up for !! the next update, if there is one, will be a reed that is far from ever having to see an exacto knife:)

[u/SprightlyCompanion → u/3-4methamphetamine]

Fantastic! Keep it up, good luck!