What do you tie onto? I've heard all sorts of bizzar stories of Univercity students tieing onto Pianos, Chairs, and Door knobs. Right now I tie onto a small C clamp.
It's actually a video about a reed wrapping machine, but near the beginning of the video he shows a cool way to tie on. All he uses is a flathead screw (I think that's what they're called) and he doesn't even need to knot the string using the screw method.
In this video he shows how to wrap the reed by hand entirely, but in this video he ties on to a table leg and you can see a whole ton of strings left on the table leg that were tied from before. It's kind of interesting.
I don't make my own reeds yet or I'd tell you what I tie on to, although I'd guess it'd probably be whatever I could tie on to that was nearby, lol.
Hmm Nice Videos... The second one didn't seem to load... That wrapping machine was really neat. Although I don't really think you should use a chemical sealer. It doesn't seem right. With three half-hitches you can do the same. Think about it: You are blowing through that oboe reed, sucking the water through that oboe reed, Why put poisinous chemicals all over it?
You are right in saying that three half-hitches would get the same job done when wrapping a reed, but I can't say that using something other than a knot is necessarily wrong.
Polycrylic isn't poisonous. In fact it's water-based. Sure it wouldn't be a good idea to go and drink a can of it, but licking it wouldn't hurt you.
I've ordered reeds from Kerry that had the string sealed with Polycrylic. His reeds are very nice and I've never had a bad experience with the seal.
I think it's actually a better alternative to using fishskin or tape to seal the top of the string. One time I was using a Jones reed (I know you're gonna tell me they suck, and guess what, I agree with you, but that's what I started out with) and the little tape thing they use at the top of the string came off and somehow got into my mouth. I freaked out and started gagging and stuff during an oboe solo and my director got really mad and then started freaking out too because he thought I was choking or something. It was pretty hilarious.
It depends where I'm at. At home, my desk doesn't have "pole-like" legs to tie string to, so I use a small C-clamp. But at oboe camp, I tie it to the table leg if I sit near the end of the table; otherwise, it's still a small C-clamp.
When I was a teenager and just learning to tie on (which was all I was able to do) I used the legs of our dining room chairs. Now I am 50 and my mom is so nostalgic about my teenage oboe playing years that she still has those bits of nylon thread on the chairs and won't remove them!!
By the way, I picked up the oboe again 2 years ago and have found out that there were many gaps in my oboe education and that maybe I wasn't such a great player after all!! (ah, the arrogance of youth...)
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