Gouging The Slip
Place your shooting/gouging block in the vice, so that the front of it stands slightly up-right, place your slip of cane with the inner curve up over onto the block.
Using the edge of your gouge, make the first cut so that the gouge is canted over to one side, and is cutting from near the edge towards the middle of the slip, but try not to get too close to the edges at this stage, leave at least 1mm at the edge, see picture top left.
You might want to turn the slip around and come in and along from the other end, when you are more confident you will be able to do this procedure from one end right through.
Do this procedure on both sides of the slip until you acquire the shape shown in, picture top right, when you have practiced this many times, you will soon be able to do this with only two runs/cuts of the gouge.
Now gouge down the middle of the slip, taking out the centre ridge, see, pictures middle left/right, keep gouging from the centre, until the cut widens and nears the edges, giving you the shape shown in, picture middle right, then finish off on the sanding dowel.
The thickness of your gouged slips after sanding should be around 1.10 to 1.30mm for concert reeds, and .80 mm to just under 1.00mm for flat reeds, use only the very sharpest of chisels to keep the inside surfaces as smooth as possible, then you will have far less sanding/smoothing to do later, sanding dowels like the one below right can be anything from 60.00mm to 80.00mm in diameter, I prefer the latter, as they give a lip opening that does not need so much forcing closed afterwards.
