CP stainless steel staples

[ambaiste]

100 Years of Stainless Steel 2 Years of Stainless Staples - CP

It has been 100 years since Harry Brearley invented stainless steel in my home city of Sheffield. He was researching anti-corrosion materials for use in gun barrels but found a better use for the alloy in the manufacture of cutlery and spoons and forks, (in Sheffield only knives are cutlery, the clue is in the name Cutlery). The factory where the first knives were made is still there and has been purchased by its multiple-occupancy craftsmen to save it from conversion to apartments.
What has this to do with UP..
Well, as I posted on this forum about 2 years ago I was experimenting with stainless steel for use in staple making. The results were excellent but the staples being made from solid bar were difficult to produce. (The staple is made a bit like boring a chanter and then machining the outside form). The new staples I have been producing for the last six months or so have been made using specially designed tungsten carbide tooling on an even more specialised machine tool. Expensive but the results are worth the trouble. As Pat Sky said earlier on this forum half the work of making a reed is producing the staple, therefore the time saved in knowing that the staple is “perfect” more than compensates for the high cost.
Having had the barrel of the staple produced to a consistent design I have been able to change the design of the eye and eye taper to produce and optimum shape. To produce a constant eye shape has involved making a press tool and a special measuring device. To test this has involved making many reeds as only making one reed does not allow for the variety in cane.
It is surprising how very small variations in dimensions can affect the performance of staples. When the research on the staple was completed I could do more work on the cane part of the reed. I made my first UP reed in 1973 and my reed methods have changed considerably since then. Many of the changes have been in producing a dimensionally consistent shape and then making controlled changes. Having a consistent staple has made this process much easier as I know that any changes I make to the cane are unaffected by the staple.
I have been asked if I would sell staples to reed-makers. I was at first reluctant as the cost of producing staples in this way is of course expensive but the time it is saving me in not using good cane on a staple that is not produced to a constant accuracy for me has been worth the extra cost.
If you would like to purchase either the new stainless staple reeds or staples contact Dorothy at shop@howardmusic.co.uk.
Brian Howard.

[rorybbellows]

It is fairly well accepted that different chanter designs need different staples .How do get around that fact ?

RORY

[ambaiste]

Rory posted:

It is fairly well accepted that different chanter designs need different staples .How do get around that fact ?

RORY
Firstly it is not necessarily a FACT when considering staples with the correct bore design. Good research involves disregarding received wisdom when the research shows it to be wrong. Some types of staples will work in some chanters but not others, this is especially true with parallel bore tubing. Other designs of staple will work in many chanters. The objective of all the research has been to discover the best form a staple should take. I have found that my design of staple will work well in many makes of concert D chanters. See the previous postings here.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=84995&hilit=stainless+staples

Brian Howard.
www.howardmusic.co.uk

[myrddinemrys]

In a similar discussion with my former pipe instructor, his thoughts were to focus on making the best staple/reed that he could, and make the respective adjustments during the reedmaking process. I see this as an opportunity. Being that the chanter is a truncated cone and the staple is an extension of that cone, if you have a good internal geometry, then you'll have a good staple. There was a recent attempt at a reed which involved some guesswork on my part to determine what the staple dimensions should be, and the chanter played perfectly in tune (by "perfect", you know what I mean).

[ambaiste]

Myrddinemrys posted:

In a similar discussion with my former pipe instructor, his thoughts were to focus on making the best staple/reed that he could, and make the respective adjustments during the reedmaking process. I see this as an opportunity. Being that the chanter is a truncated cone and the staple is an extension of that cone, if you have a good internal geometry, then you'll have a good staple. There was a recent attempt at a reed which involved some guesswork on my part to determine what the staple dimensions should be, and the chanter played perfectly in tune (by "perfect", you know what I mean).


BLH
When you say:

1.
Myrddinemrys
In a similar discussion with my former pipe instructor, his thoughts were to focus on making the best staple/reed that he could, and make the respective adjustments during the reedmaking process.
BLH
I think you are missing the point concerning my reeds: the reed is interchangeable between chanters without scraping and other changes.
2.
Myrddinemrys
Being that the chanter is a truncated cone and the staple is an extension of that cone, if you have a good internal geometry, then you'll have a good staple
BLH
The bore is not a truncated cone, it is more complicated than that. It needs perturbations to put it in tune. The staple is nor a continuation of the supposed conical bore, here again perturbations play a big roll.
3
Myrddinemrys

…. and the chanter played perfectly in tune (by "perfect", you know what I mean).

I don’t know what you mean it is either perfect or it isn’t.
Brian Howard.

[myrddinemrys]

wow, never expected to get flamed in this discussion.

[ambaiste]

Sorry, no flaming intended. I was pointing out acoustical inaccuracies regarding your description of the effects the bore and staple have on the shape of the air column. And I took the “"perfect", you know what I mean” to mean that there are “acceptable” faults in the tuning of UP chanters such as the E notes being narrow in the octave, the second octave B “always” being sharp and the soft D “always being out of tune”. A well designed chanter and reed combination shows the above to be untrue.
Sorry for being brusque but there is so much inaccurate and unscientific information circulated about the way uilleann pipes actually work.

Brian Howard

[Christian Tietje]

Hi Brian,
it's not so simple, as it's acclaimed. I've bought two pieces to try and to test. At the first approach - low octave - both reeds worked fine, both the same. Nice sound, 440 Hz, easy to play, clear, loud. But the upper octave was much too high, mainly "a" and "b".

Simple to maintain, I thought. The staple to be narrowed or the cane to be extended to a longer reed and to be pushed further in to keep 440 Hz. To narrow was not successful, still too high in the upper octave, nearly no change. I put wire into, also no real good change. After that I extended the reed by putting the cane on the staple to achieve a longer reed, an extended conus to a bigger total length.

After several hours I ended up: The staples were too short to extend the reed to the necessary total lenght. I measured and found, that the staples are about 5 mm shorter, than my usual ones.

Additionally for me the stainless steel did not result a better sound what also was my hope and worth trying. After my opinion no change compared with brass staples.