Boning with reeds - a few questions

To those who have boned corsets with reeds:
I wonder if there's something you should do with the reeds before using them?
I bought the thinner of Grannd Garb's flat oval reeds. They are currently in a coil, how do you make them straight?
Should smoothen the ends with sand paper?

I think they are thick enough to only have one per channel, but what is your experience?

Boring things you have to do

I have made the last changes in chapters 3,4 and 5 of the dissertation and now I will sit down and grade 20 tests. Yay. Not.

Sewing meeting

Tonight's sewing meeting was very nice. Apart from the usual assortment of people from Nylöse Wobbeke, who definitely is a member of Nylöse, but currently lives in Scania (extreme south of Sweden) and Monika, who I sort of met through LJ and a mutual interest in 19th century costume. First there wasn't much medieval/renaissance sewing going on: Tala was helping Wobbeke fit her. 1750 corset, I sewed lace on the viscose lining for my new navy short wool dress and Monika was knitting socks. armillary can be trusted not to sew anything outside our group's timespan (the same as for the SCA) and was working on his early 14th c. brocade tunic, Solveig was making a fur lined viking cap and Anna was making a viking coat for her daughter Hedvig who is 9 days short of two years. Sigrid was sewing something that looked like a linen strap for a viking dress, but she wasn't sure since she had started it a long time ago and couldn't remember what it was for. After a while Wobbeke started naalebinding a sock.
Anyway, we had lots of tea, sponge cake and pleasant conversation. Now I'm off to bed.