Klarinet Archive - Posting 000060.txt from 2001/10

From: "Tim Roberts" <timr@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Benefits of Oiling the Bore...
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 14:30:17 -0400

On Thu, 4 Oct 2001 05:05:29 -0600, "David C. Kumpf" <dkumpf@-----.com>
wrote:
>
>See the articles at
>http://www.naylors-woodwind-repair.com/publication/index.htm for one
>perspective on this.

I've read through Larry Naylor's article on Environmental Effects on
Grenadilla Wood with a critical eye, and it has left me confused.

I don't know how to fit this article into my knowledge base. The author
clearly has many years of experience repairing clarinets, and that increases
his credibility quotient, but much of what he says goes contrary both to what
I've heard before, and to what makes sense to me.

Mr. Naylor is clearly a believer in the "blow-out" theory of clarinet
deterioration, to the point where he says those who do not experience it are
simply not "sensitive" enough to notice it.

The article describes expansion and contraction of a wood clarinet from both
temperature and moisture, to such a degree that posts change their relative
positions enough to make a key bind during a players warm-up period. This is
completely counter-intuitive to me. He introduces the article with a mention
of "taking consistent, reliable, precise measurements". This got me excited:
finally, some real, hard data instead of just unsupported opinions. But the
article contains no such measurements, and indeed concludes that such
measurements are "impossible". This sets of warning bells in my brain; too
often, someone will say "measurements are impossible", when instead what they
mean is "my measurements produced results that are contrary to what I
believe."

He describes daily changes in the clarinet's dimensions of one or two
thousandths of an inch. Such a change should be measurable with todays
tools. But, even so, I have a hard time accepting that a change of one or
two thousandths of an inch would be enough to make a key bind, or even to
noticeably alter the pitch or tone of the instrument. Two thousandths of an
inch change in a 20 inch instrument is one hundredth of one percent. I don't
believe the human ear could detect one hundredth of one percent change in
pitch.

I've read opinions on this list from people I trust state that grenadilla is
so hard it takes weeks for oil and moisture to penetrate the surface to any
appreciable degree. This article describes moisture-induced changes in a
clarinet to such a degree that I wondered if he has really been working on
pine instead of grenadilla.

He has before and after picture of a bass clarinet he repaired. The
description says the wood was "very dry". Now, one cannot judge a
description like that from a picture, but I do notice that the wood in the
"before" picture still has a glossy finish, and it is certainly clear in the
"after" picture that there is fresh, unabsorbed oil glistening on the surface
of the wood. It isn't obvious to me that the wood has been changed in any
way.

On the other hand, I am a clarinet tyro. What I know on this subject has
come from the statements of others, after having passed through my
"sensibility seive".

Isn't there some masters or doctoral candidate out there who needs a good
thesis topic, and who would like to undertake a precise and carefully
controlled study of the expansion and contraction behavior of grenadilla
clarinets under thermal and moisture stress???

--
- Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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