Klarinet Archive - Posting 000383.txt from 1998/02

From: Douglas Sears <dsears@-----.org>
Subj: Re: Was it elitism...? (Buffet Greenline)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 00:57:37 -0500

On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Don Yungkurth wrote:

> >From an engineering background I feel that the Greenline material should be
> considered a "filled plastic". Filled plastic is often a derogatory term,
> since the filler used is often cheaper than the plastic and used as a low
> cost extender. If you have solid particles (grenadilla) suspended in a
> continuous phase (plastic), the particles contribute little to the physical
> properties except as they affect appearance (color, opacity etc.).

One important property that fillers affect is density, and with 90%
grenadilla, the density of the Greenline material must be close to
that of grenadilla. Fillers can also significantly increase or
decrease properties such as modulus and impact resistance, but
that's probably not the big issue for clarinets.

> I suppose if you have relatively large particles of grenadilla, you could
> have a high ratio of wood to plastic (like the 90% claimed above) and
> manage to have a continuous phase of plastic to achieve strength. If the
> grenadilla was like dust, however, the high surface area involved would
> probably prevent you from using a 90/10 ratio of wood to plastic.

You're just guessing here, and in fact they do use 90% grenadilla
(unless they're lying to us) and still have a strong enough product.

> My guess is that the use of grenadilla as the filler helps us to accept the
> Greenline as a "real" clarinet,

That's my guess, too.

> but the filler might just as well be oak or
> balsa.

Here I disagree. Neither oak nor balsa remotely resembles grenadilla
in density. To replace all the internal air in these woods with
plastic would take a lot more than 10% plastic.

--Doug

--------------------------
Doug Sears dsears@-----.org/~dsears