Expensive profilers are not a waste of money!

A bassoon(contra) reed is a tool we use to make our instruments produce sound.  A well crafted reed is needed.  Any tool I can use to do this quickly and efficiently is welcome.  However if you make your reeds exactly the same each time(final depth) some reeds will be perfect.  Some will be too hard and some too soft.  I've been making reeds and reed tools almost as long.  I started with simple machines I could produce without much help from machine tools.  I graduated to a milling machine.  My latest machines are very good.  The only problem is they are not as finished looking as an MD or Hertzberg machine so I found a machinist and the machines I will produce for sale will rival or surpass anything available.  That is the first ingredient. My single barrel design is the only machine on which you can control the center to side profile.  Expensive double profilers are capable of this but the cost of changing is a new expensive cam.  But enough talk of my machine.  Just know it will do the rails better than you can by hand.  Much quicker too.  Once you have the back of your blade exactly as you want it it's easy to concentrate on the tip.  If your piece of cane is soft you can start by not using your tip profiler or finishing the tip normally.  On these soft reeds I try to take the square edge off the tip using a 4 inch tube with sandpaper inside.. If that works and I get a good sound and response I stop and call myself lucky.  If the reed still doesn't respond I'll try rounding the throat.  If I then have success great.  If that doesn't work the only thing left is to narrow the blade or cut the tip.  I rarely don't get a reed blank to work.  But again the basis of my reeds is a well balanced blank with a crescent shaped center to side profile.  Without that you will spend too much time on hand work. I'm playing with the San Francisco Opera tomorrow on bassoon and contra.  I have all the reeds I need and the confidence to use them.  All I'l have to do is practice the notes.

Your old nonreactivatable smart phone is still useful

It turns out that there are pockets of Luddites all over the country that don't own a smartphone.  However a source for old smartphones that can still be used is the recent elimination by Metro PCS of their CDMA phones.  As of Sept. 2014 that frequency will be switched to the TMobile branch of the company and anyone with the old phone must buy a new phone.  These phones can not be reactivated.  However they are still good as an emergency 911 phone, will still work on WiFi.  All the apps still work sooooo....they are just like an iPod Touch in usability plus you can make an emergency call.   Skype works so you could use Skype and make one into a cheap cell phone that only works when connected to WiFi.  For some that might be all you need.  Calls are cheap and free if you don't want a phone number. Also Games.....you could play scrabble with thousands of opponents or invite your friends.  The uses are myriad.  Anything you can use a smart phone for.  It's limited.  No 4G.  No network phone calls.  But the price is right.  Lawrence Rhodes September 2014.