This one is not necessarily a mistake for everyone, but it was for me. I was taught to scrape both ends of my shaped cane after soaking it and right before tying it. This was to help prevent the reed from cracking during the tying process and maybe there are some other benefits for some reedmakers to scraping before tying oboe reeds.
But I had a big problem with leaky reeds and one day I came across the suggestion to not scrape the cane before tying. I believe the idea behind it was that getting the cane too thin too high up the staple would make it harder for the sides of the reed to close. I have since seen other oboists not scrape the cane at this step as well, so maybe you don’t need this advice.
Skipping that step greatly improved my reeds and reduced the number of leaky reeds I had. I was so excited when I fixed this problem, so I wanted to pass along the idea in case you need this breakthrough as well!
This does leave a lump along the staple after the reed is tied because the cane is obviously not going to taper as much, so your tying may not be as ascetically pleasing. I find it to be a worthwhile trade-off though!
Read about my other mistakes you can avoid!
(Handmade oboe reeds available here!)