Klarinet Archive - Posting 000798.txt from 1998/09

From: "Dee Hays" <deerich@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Solid Aluminum Clarinets?
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 15:39:26 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Roberts <timr@-----.com>
Date: Tuesday, September 22, 1998 1:39 PM
Subject: Re: [kl] Solid Aluminum Clarinets?

>On 22 Sep 1998 17:21:30 -0000, "Chuck Trimble CPA" <trimble@-----.net>
wrote:
>>i believe aluminum alloy is generally lighter than genadilla is it not?
>>chuck trimble
>
>That would also have been my guess, but I'm wrong so often that I decided
to
>check.
>
>According to the African Blackwood Conservation Project web page, mpingo
has a
>density of 1200 kg/m3. According to a high school chemistry test I found
on
>another web page, aluminum has a density of 2.7 g/cm3. If my adjustment of
the
>units is correct, that makes the mpingo at 1.2 g/cm3 less than half as
dense as
>aluminum.
>
>I'm surprised.

Your conversion is correct.

The only reason that you are surprised is that in normal daily activities we
only see aluminum in very thin sheets. For example, aluminum siding is far
thinner than the walls of a wooden clarinet. We have a mental image of
aluminum being "light" because it is only about 1/3 the density of steel.
But a block of aluminum is still heavier than a block of wood (of the same
size).

Dee Hays
Canton, SD

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