Klarinet Archive - Posting 001108.txt from 1998/07

From: reedman@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Fraising
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 01:24:04 -0400

Fraising is one of those words that has made it's way into the vernacular
of repairmen and clarinet makers that has a foreign origin. Another one of
those words is "swedge", as in to swedge a key. I believe that word came
from an English word "swage". In my dictionary it states :

swage (n) 1. A tool used in bending or sahping cold metal

On a hunch I looked up anything that looked like "fraise" in my
Cassell's French dictionary. Guess what!

fraise is a strawberry (that I knew) or a tool for enlarging a drill
hole.

fraiser is a verb which can mean to enlarge (a drill hole) with a
fraise.

This helps clarify the diffence in the terms "undercut" and "fraise".
The terms "undercut" and "fraise" are often used interchangeably, but from
the reading I have done this does not seem to be true. In fact, if you read
my original post you will see that I have used the terms "undercutting" and
"fraising" differently. My use of the term "fraise" refers to the
application of a tool that looks like a reverse countersink and is rotated
either by hand or in a machine to uniformly cut a cone or bell shape where
the tone hole meets the bore. (Wish I could produce a drawing!)

"Undercutting", on the other hand, is done with a hand tool ( I use a
small round file). The purpose of this technique is to work only on one
side of a tone hole to raise pitch, or in some cases, reduce noise.

Hope that clears things up! Thanks for the question - I learned
something too!

Clark W Fobes

Clark W Fobes
Web Page http://www.sneezy.org/clark_fobes

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