Klarinet Archive - Posting 000613.txt from 1999/10

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] CRACK 2
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 06:54:52 -0400

Ulrich Duemke wrote:
>What hurts is that I have always handled my instruments carefully. I have
played new instruments not more than 15 minutes a day in the first time,
watched and felt the wood, played longer when I felt that the wood doesn't
work. I never got trouble before and was proud. But now - my clarinet
cracked!!>

>Is it the wood, fate?
>How do you handle a new Instrument?

Sounds as though it was just the wood, since you handled the clarinet right
by breaking it in slowly. Some new wood goes "sproing!" and there's nothing
you can do to prevent it. In the days of Stradivarius, Italian violin makers
sometimes used wood aged naturally for over a century, but today, almost all
lumber companies and musical instrument manufacturers kiln dry wood to speed
up the process. Sometimes even naturally aged wood acts weird, but that
kiln-dried stuff is very unpredictable. Also, the wood has stresses built
into it from the growth pattern of the tree, and sawing the wood can weaken a
stressed area that wasn't obvious in the larger board. It may take awhile
for the stress to release, but eventually the wood warps or cracks there.
That's nobody's fault. It's just the nature of the material.

My husband makes hand-turned walking sticks on a lathe. Kevin selects his
lumber very carefully, one board at a time, from a good "Mom and Pop"
supplier, but sometimes he gets surprised. He will cut a perfectly straight
board on a power saw with a strong jig to hold the wood in position, so he
makes sure he gets a straight cut, but sometimes, the minute he's done
sawing, zzzzt, the two pieces of wood go banana-shaped. Sometimes a stick
that looks beautiful when finished will warp or crack later. Usually with
walking sticks, anything bad will happen in the first 6 months or so.

Lelia

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