For the 3rd time today I have been asked to quote on custom reed petals. One for a Kart, an old out board motor and also custom stiffness/shape RD 350 YPVS. I thought that if people are asking, it must be worth talking about.

Firstly, I must get this off my chest. Reed thickness has absolutely nothing to do with stiffness, over the years I have probably wasted over 100 hours explaining this. It is all about stiffness, generally the more flexible the reed the better the throttle response and a small increase in performance. However go to far the reed will fail quickly. On the over side thicker reeds will open more slowly and to an extent, not as much. However they will certainly last longer.

The middle ground is generally where the manufactures fix there petals. However as a rule older bikes use spring steel or fiber glass types. Carbon fiber offers something a little stiffer than either of these materials dependant on weave, number of ply’s and machining orientation.

I will go over carbon fibre reed manufacturer in another post, but I did have to get the thickness thing off my chest!

So, here how we quoted:

The Kart customer is able to send us a sample of the reed they require. This make life a lot easier for us. We will draw the reed in CAD, match the stiffness as close as possible to our carbon fibre stock and produce 8 blade/petals. Total cost £95.

The outboard motor customer has got a worn set of reed for us to copy from, again saving us time. He requires 4 small blades. Total cost £65.

Finally the Yamaha RD 350 YPVS LCII customer has a custom design which he wanted maching, we will be able to use his drawing (however as the drawing is owned by the customer we will not produce this design for anyone else). He requested a total of 80 petals, with a sample set to confirm suitability. We have quoted £365.

All these cases will be completely in under 5 working days.

As you can see, custom reeds for either for out of production or a performance solution can be had for a lot less than you might first think!

Any queries, please contact either Brett or Ian @ Showe